Laura C. Bunting will be presenting, “Social Media: Legal Issues When Employees Log-On (Inside and Outside of the Workplace),” at the Pittsburgh Human Resources Association’s 70th Annual Conference & Exhibition in Mars, PA on October 9, 2018. Read More
One of the defining moments for many adolescents is their first summer job. A first job often represented a sense of freedom and increased independence. No matter what your first job was, you certainly learned lessons about how to be a valuable member of a workplace. During summers in Ithaca, New York, I worked at a bakery, a clothing store at the mall, an antiques store, and later, I was a counselor at a sleep-away camp in the Poconos. Each of these jobs taught me new skills, pushed me outside my comfort zone, and developed my career values. As this summer ends, revisit the lessons you learned during your first jobs and use them to sustain and reinvigorate your legal career. The following are some of the key lessons I learned during my summer jobs.
Persistence
Finding your first job may have been a challenge and likely taught you how important follow-up and follow through are in the workplace. My first summer home from college, it seemed like I was running out of places to apply to for a job and not having any luck. Many of the restaurants were not interested unless you had worked in a restaurant before and I had only worked retail during high school. I eventually made a list of each place I had applied and then followed up with phone calls to each business asking the manager the status of my application. Eventually I was hired by one of the first places I had applied. The same thing may have been true when searching for your first job out of law school or your next position. Try not to be frustrated with the hard work that often accompanies finding or changing jobs. A positive attitude while job hunting will be noticed. Additionally, whether you want to develop your career at your firm or organization or make a career transition, be persistent in working toward your goals. Read More
The commencement speaker when you graduated from law school inevitably highlighted members of the audience who supported the graduates during school, and would provide continued support while the graduates studied for the bar exam and began their careers. Your career can be enhanced through relationships with others in your network of fellow attorneys, along with support from friends and family. These relationships can provide you with new opportunities and challenge you to go outside of your comfort zone. Each person has specific strengths. Therefore, it may be helpful to seek out connections with different skills to help you work toward your career goals. With that in mind, you may want to develop connections in the following categories:
The Scholar
The best source of referrals, future job prospects, and long-term success in the legal field is substantive knowledge of the law. As a young lawyer, one of the highest compliments you can be paid is if another attorney refers a case to you. The best way to build these referrals is to become the “go-to” attorney in your area of the law, so that you are the first person who comes to mind when an attorney has a case to refer. The scholar is a well-respected and well-versed practitioner or in-house counsel in your chosen field of law. Ask the scholar to coffee or a meeting in his office to express an interest in his or her career. The scholar may be able to provide insight on resources and organizations you should consider joining to deepen your understanding of the law. For example, if you practice labor and employment law, a Human Resources organization may provide insight on issues employers are facing. Become curious about available resources as well. The U.S. District Court ECF (electronic case files) systems allow you to receive notifications of filings related to attorney, party or type of case directly to your email. Read More
Gaetan J. Alfano will be a panelist speaker at the Business Insurance U.S. Women to Watch Annual Conference in New York City, on December 15, 2017.
Mr. Alfano’s panel will focus on the gender pay gap issue. He will discuss recent case law on the employer ban on inquiries into salary history, the Philadelphia ordinance, and how all of these developments impact the overall landscape for employees.
For More Information Click HERE Read More
Pennsylvania is on the cusp of a significant change as the State’s medical marijuana industry becomes fully operational. This summer, Pennsylvania awarded permits to twelve businesses to grow marijuana and twenty-seven businesses to sell medicinal marijuana. By June 2018, residents can start purchasing marijuana from dispensaries for approved medical purposes, and the industry is projecting first-year sales of 150 million dollars. Once the dispensaries open, the consumption of marijuana by Pennsylvania residents may increase substantially.
Given the magnitude of anticipated change, Pennsylvania employers should prepare for the likelihood of increased marijuana usage by their employees. As a starting point, employers with mandatory drug testing programs need to closely monitor medicinal marijuana legal developments, not just because of the tension between state disability discrimination laws and the Federal Controlled Substances Act’s prohibition on marijuana use generally, but also because of the conflict between state laws permitting medicinal marijuana use and certain industry-specific regulations banning the use of medicinal marijuana. As an example, the Department of Transportation’s drug and alcohol testing regulation, 49 CFR § 40.151(e), prohibits companies from allowing individuals in safety sensitive positions in the transportation industry to use marijuana for medicinal purposes, even if they live in a state that permits such activity.
Most employers have always operated in a world where they could lawfully terminate an employee for failing a drug test, including due to the presence of marijuana. It did not matter whether the drug use occurred during non-working hours. For now, that is the law in Pennsylvania. That used to be the law in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut; it no longer is…..or at least the law is no longer as black and white. In states allowing medical marijuana, employers may have to “accommodate” an employee’s medical marijuana use as a reasonable accommodation for an employee’s disability. Read More
Joseph L. Gordon was interviewed in an article titled, “Potential Litigation Uptick Seen From 3rd Circuit’s Workplace Slur Ruling.” Published July 31, 2017 in The Legal Intelligencer.
Related Information:
Click Here to Read The Legal Intelligencer Article Read More
On April 7, 2017, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania issued its opinion in Chestnut Hill College v. Pennsylvania Human Rel. Commn., 844 C.D. 2016, — A –, 2017 WL 1289250, (Pa. Commw. Apr. 7, 2017), holding, in a case of first impression, that a Catholic college’s decision to expel a student could be challenged under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (“PHRA”).
During administrative proceedings before the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (“PHRC”), Chestnut Hill College (“the college”) claimed that the PHRC lacked jurisdiction over the matter because, the college asserted, it was not a “public accommodation” under the PHRA and, moreover, that any exercise of jurisdiction would violate the college’s First Amendment rights. The PHRC rejected those arguments and the appeal followed.
The Commonwealth Court affirmed. The Court noted that the scope of “public accommodations” under the PHRA is broad. Accordingly, “[p]rovided the College accepts . . . the patronage of the general public, and is not in its nature distinctly private, it constitutes a public accommodation as defined by the Act.” The Court rejected the college’s position that it was “distinctively private” given its religious affiliation. The Court noted that unlike a parochial school, which is heavily focused on indoctrinating students in the relevant religious faith, religious colleges remain largely secular in their educational functions. The Court also rejected the college’s position that the First Amendment precluded jurisdiction. While the Court recognized that, under the First Amendment, “generally courts must defer to church hierarchy in the resolution of any ecclesiastical matter,” the Court concluded that the expulsion decision could be reviewed under “neutral principles of law” and thus the judiciary would not be tasked with delving into religious doctrine.
Chestnut Hill broadens the scope of the PHRA and PHRC. Prior to Chestnut Hill, many religious colleges and universities could rely on established precedent holding that parochial grade schools are not “public accommodations” to argue that their institutions are outside the scope of the PHRA and PHRC. Read More
To attract high caliber employees, employers sometimes commit to employment for a fixed period through an employment contract. Not surprisingly, those employees with the leverage to command an employment contract typically represent a serious competitive threat once they leave the company. Given that dynamic, most employment contracts include restrictive covenants, such as non-solicit or non-compete agreements. The recent case of Metalico Pittsburgh Inc. v. Douglas Newman, et al., __ A.3d __ (2017), 2017 WL 1398882 (Pa. Super. Ct., April 19, 2017) dealt with the question of what happens to the restrictive covenants in an employment contract when an employee converts to at-will status.
In Metalico, an employer entered into three-year contracts with two high-level executives. After the three-year period ended, Metalico continued to employ the executives as at-will employees, with some corresponding changes to the conditions of their employment. After working at-will for a year, the two executives departed to a competitor and solicited Metalico’s customers to move their business from Metalico to their new employer. They also solicited Metalico employees to resign and join the new employer. In response, Metalico sought a preliminary injunction to enforce the restrictive covenants.
The executives argued that they were no longer bound to the restrictive covenants because the three-year term of their employment contracts had expired. The trial court agreed and ruled that the restrictive covenants did not carry forward because the transition from a term employee to an at-will employee constituted the commencement of a new instance of employment. The Pennsylvania Superior Court, however, rejected that rationale citing the following provision of the employment contracts:
If the Executive’s employment hereunder expires or is terminated, this Agreement will continue in full force and effect as is necessary or appropriate to enforce the covenants and agreements of the Executive in [§] 8[, which contains the restrictive covenants]. Read More
Joseph L. Gordon authored “Employers Feel Heat Following Summer’s Arbitration Agreement Cases” which was published in The Legal Intelligencer on September 28, 2016.
Related Information:
Employers Feel Heat Following Summer’s Arbitration Agreement Cases Read More
November 26, 2025
We are proud to announce that partner Robert D. Weinberg became a Fellow in the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML). Read More
October 20, 2025
Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti, LLP is pleased to announce the addition of four new associates to the firm’s Pittsburgh Office. Read More
