A wage claim landed on your business. You have defenses.

WHAT WE DO FOR BUSINESSES 01

A demand letter or a lawyer’s call

What we do in the first week

• Read the letter and the statute it relies on, and note the deadline it sets
• Collect the time records, payroll registers, schedules and pay notices for the worker and the period claimed
• Rebuild the weeks the letter claims and compare its figures to what the records show
• Check exemptions, the limitations period, offsets and good faith
• Send a litigation hold to managers so texts and schedules are preserved

How we answer

A demand letter is often a maximum number written by the worker’s lawyer before seeing your records. Our response puts the records and the law on the table and, where the claim has merit, opens a conversation about a fair figure before anyone files. Where it does not, we say so with the arithmetic attached.

Do not call the worker or the lawyer yourself, and do not change the worker’s hours or pay in response. Retaliation claims carry their own damages and are easier to prove than the underlying wage claim.

WHAT WE DO FOR BUSINESSES 02

A Department of Labor audit or investigation

What an audit looks like

• A letter or a visit from an investigator asking for two or three years of payroll, time records and a list of employees
• Interviews with workers, sometimes at the workplace, sometimes by phone
• A closing conference where the investigator presents back wages and, in some cases, penalties

What we do

We respond to the document request in an organized way, prepare owners and managers for interviews, sit in where the rules allow, and check the investigator’s computation line by line. Audits often overstate hours or apply the wrong exemption, and a careful response can cut the figure substantially.

New York’s Department of Labor can assess liquidated damages and interest and, in some cases, refer matters for criminal prosecution. New Jersey’s 2019 wage theft law added stop-work orders and license consequences. Early counsel matters.

WHAT WE DO FOR BUSINESSES 03

A lawsuit or a collective action

The first 21 days

• An answer or a motion is due 21 days after service in federal court; missing it risks a default
• Decide whether to move to dismiss, to compel arbitration, or to answer and fight certification
• Preserve every record and identify every worker in the proposed group

How these cases are decided

A collective action under the federal act starts as one worker’s claim and grows only if the court conditionally certifies it and others opt in. A state class action under New York or New Jersey law can sweep in everyone in the job title for six years. The motions that decide whether a case stays small or grows are where most of the value is won or lost, and we brief them ourselves.

Owners and managers can be named personally under New York and New Jersey law. We address that exposure from the start.

WHAT WE DO FOR BUSINESSES 04

A question before anything happens

The questions that come up most

• Is this manager really exempt, or is the salary below the New York threshold ($1,237.50 a week in New York City, Long Island and Westchester in 2026)?
• How do we pay overtime to a salaried or day-rate worker who is not exempt?
• Can we use a tip credit, and what must the pay notice say?
• Is our delivery driver, cleaner or installer an employee under the ABC test in New Jersey or the New York rules?
• Can we pay a live-in aide for 13 hours of a 24-hour shift?
• Do we have to pay for training, travel between sites or a rest day?

Why ask now

A wrong answer repeated every payroll becomes a six-year claim multiplied by every worker in the title. A one-hour conversation now is the cheapest legal work a business can buy.

WHAT WE DO FOR BUSINESSES 05

A resolution

What makes a wage settlement stick

Federal wage claims usually cannot be released in a private agreement; in the Second Circuit a settlement of a filed case needs court approval, and the Department of Labor can supervise others. A release signed without that step may not hold. New York and New Jersey claims have their own rules on releases and on the worker’s attorney’s fees.

We draft settlements that survive review, structure payments sensibly, and where possible resolve the whole group rather than one worker at a time.

After the case

A resolution is also the moment to fix the practice that caused it. We pair the settlement with a short compliance review so the same claim does not come back next year.

WHAT WE DO FOR BUSINESSES 06

A worker who is still on the payroll

Do not

• Cut hours, change shifts, move the worker to a worse position or write them up for the first time
• Ask who else has complained or who is talking to the lawyer
• Mention immigration status, a visa or a background check
• Ask the worker to sign anything

Do

Keep the worker’s schedule and pay exactly as they were, tell managers in writing that nothing changes, and send the complaint to us. Retaliation is illegal under federal law and under New York Labor Law section 215, which carries liquidated damages of up to $20,000 per worker on top of lost pay. Many wage cases that would have settled small became large because of what happened after the complaint.