Curriculum Guide · Curriculum

Employment law regulates the relationship between employers and employees. Labor law regulates the additional dimension that arises when employees select (or consider selecting) a labor union to represent them in their dealings with their employer.

An enormous number of lawyers practice in the field of employment and labor law, and it is a field that adds substantial numbers of new lawyers each year. The largest number of lawyers in the field represent employers, working either in law firms or on corporate legal staffs. The second largest number of lawyers work for the federal government. The Department of Labor litigates more cases in the federal district courts than any other executive department, the National Labor Relations Board litigates more cases in federal courts of appeals than any other administrative agency, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also handles an enormous volume of litigation. There are also substantial numbers of lawyers representing labor unions (either in law firms or on unions' legal staffs). Many of these lawyers also represent individual employees, and there are also additional lawyers who specialize in representing individual employees (or class actions on behalf of groups of employees). This last group includes lawyers who combine the representation of employees with practices representing plaintiffs in civil rights, civil liberties, and/or personal injury cases.

There are three core courses in the employment and labor law curriculum. None is a prerequisite for any other, and their subject areas are discrete. Students who expect to practice in the area should consider taking all three, as most employment lawyers' work embraces the subjects in all three. There is no particular order in which the courses should be taken: scheduling preferences should determine this.

Employment Law surveys the laws that govern the employment relationship between employers and employees who are not represented by unions, as well as laws that regulate the workplace regardless of whether the employees are unionized. Principal subject areas are: the common law rules governing the contractual relationship between the employer and employees not represented by unions; the extent to which the law protects employees from wrongful discharge, invasion of privacy, abusive treatment, and defamation; the legal regulation of employment compensation (e.g., the Fair Labor Standards Act (minimum wage and overtime law), Unemployment Compensation, and ERISA (pension and welfare benefits); and the regulation of workplace health and safety (e.g., Workers' Compensation and Occupational Safety and Health Act). Logically, laws protecting workers against employment discrimination would also be covered in this course, and originally they were, but that subject has now become so enormous that it has been carved out into a separate course.

Employment Discrimination studies the numerous federal and state laws that protect employees against discrimination based on race, sex, national origin, religion, age and disability. The labor force participation of women is also addressed in the Gender and the Law (offered as a course or seminar). The course also explores the prospect for legal prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation, which is also studied in Sexual Orientation and the Law. Those especially interested in the rights of people with disabilities can pursue that subject in even greater detail, in Disability Discrimination Law. This course studies the rights of people with disabilities in a variety of contexts, but employment is a major focus. Students who wish to learn the basics of Title VII without taking an entire course devoted to discrimination in employment have the option of taking the Civil Rights course. That course studies the regulation of discrimination in a variety of contexts, one of which is employment. Approximately one-third of the course is devoted to employment discrimination.

Labor Law covers the legal issues that arise when employees are represented by a union, or seek to be represented by one. This area is largely regulated by the National Labor Relations Act, and the course constitutes an extensive examination of that statute. Subject areas include: organizing (the method by which employees elect to be represented by a union); bargaining for a collective bargaining agreement; strikes, picketing, lockouts, boycotts and other weapons deployed by the parties in support of their respective positions in collective bargaining; administration of the collective bargaining agreement once reached (with principal emphasis on the grievance and arbitration provisions that are almost always included in such agreements); and enforcement of the collective bargaining agreement in court. The course also examines the legal duties owed by unions to employees they represent.

In addition to the core courses, there are two courses that focus exclusively on labor law issues. Labor Law in Professional Sports and Entertainment Industries focuses on labor-management issues in the sports and entertainment fields. The Labor Arbitration Seminar studies the process of arbitration as the parties' chosen method for resolving disputes arising under collective bargaining agreements, and includes simulations that give students exposure to the actual process of arbitrating a case.

A number of other courses in the curriculum that have broader applicability than merely employment and labor law are nonetheless of special value to those considering a career in the field. The rights of public employees (those employed by federal, state and local governments, including police, firefighters and teachers) is a rapidly expanding field. As the "government" is the employer of these employees, they enjoy constitutional rights vis-a-vis their employers. Constitutional Law II, Civil Rights, Federal Courts and the Federal System and State and Local Government Law all are germane to representing public employers or their employees.

Practice in the field of employment and labor law involves extensive negotiation and mediation; thus, courses such as Negotiations Seminar, Negotiations and Drafting Seminar, Mediation Seminar, Negotiations and Mediation Seminar and Alternative Dispute Resolution are relevant. As the field entails extensive litigation, Evidence and a clinic or Trial Practice are valuable experiences.

Students with an aptitude and interest in tax-like complexities would be well suited to practicing ERISA law (pension and welfare plans), and this is an enormously growing field providing a large number of job opportunities. ERISA is covered only very peripherally in the Employment Law course, but there is a separate J.D. course covering issues of Retirement Income: Taxation and Regulation and a number of ERISA courses are offered in the graduate program.

Full-time Faculty:
Charles F. Abernathy
Daniel R. Ernst
Chai R. Feldblum
Lawrence O. Gostin
Michael H. Gottesman
Carrie J. Menkel-Meadow
James C. Oldham
Nina Pillard
Alvaro Santos