Insights

Washington – August 15, 2024: The 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 42 Crowell & Moring lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 29 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

Washington – June 6, 2024: Crowell & Moring earned 78 rankings for 67 lawyers, as well as 41 national and statewide practice area rankings, in the Chambers USA 2024 guide. The rankings are driven by independent interviews of clients and lawyers at peer firms.

Washington – August 17, 2023: The 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 47 firm lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 41 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

Late on Friday, a federal judge in Maryland issued a preliminary injunction pausing certain elements of the Trump Administration’s two recent executive orders (“EOs”) addressing “illegal DEI programs.” The two EOs, Exec. Order 14151, Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing (the “J20 Order”) and Exec. Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (“J21 Order”), contain a number of provisions that, among other things, direct the federal government to dismantle “illegal DEI programs” within federal agencies and federal contractors. Please refer to our prior alert on these EOs for a full breakdown of the provisions in each.

The first day of the Trump Administration included the issuance of 26 executive orders(“EOs”), the most in modern presidential history. Among these EOs, President Trump signed the Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government Executive Order (the “EO” or “Order”). While focused on federal policy, the Order has broad implications for private sector employers.

Late on the night of January 21, 2025, President Trump signed the “Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” Executive Order (the “EO”). This EO, like a number of the executive orders issued on his first day in office, took aim at Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) programs by, among other things, broadly directing executive agencies and departments to terminate all “discriminatory and illegal preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements;” curtailing the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ (OFCCP) operational authority and directing agencies to scrutinize the DEI practices of private sector employers. Additionally, this language raises questions about the future and status of certain programs, preferences, and set-aside procurements administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, and other agencies. 

The issue of pay equity between women and men has been garnering a growing amount of attention from a variety of quarters, making litigation of pay-equity claims—from class actions to individual cases—an increasingly common occurrence.

This retailer-only roundtable discussion provides a safe space to take a deeper dive into the issues discussed in the morning’s plenary session on union organizing. We will provide attendees an opportunity to share experiences and exchange best practices on responses to the current wave of union organizing and more aggressive union demands, including an increased willingness to engage in economic strikes. Are you contemplating a different strategy regarding union organizing and, if so, what are the core principles? How are we, as employers in a time of dramatic change and economic uncertainty, able to address concerns that are front of mind to employees? 

Please join us for the next edition of Third Thursday – Crowell & Moring’s Labor and Employment Update, a webinar series dedicated to helping our clients stay on top of developing law and emerging compliance issues. Only five months in, 2014 has already been a very busy year for the Office of Federal Compliance Programs (OFCCP).  This month’s program will focus on recent developments in affirmative action and OFCCP enforcement initiatives. 

Please join us for the next edition of Third Thursday – Crowell & Moring's Labor and Employment Update, a webinar series dedicated to helping our clients stay on top of developing law, emerging compliance issues, and best practices.

In Collaboration with the IBJDuring this webinar we will dive into the European Directive on pay transparency that entered into force in June 2024 and has to be transposed for June 2026 in all EU Member States. This European Directive has the ambition to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women, for all employees in all sectors. The Directive brings significant new reporting obligations and assessment obligations on employers that the EU Member States will publish. How will you have to calculate the threshold to know if your company as an employer falls under the scope of the Directive? And what happens when there is a gap in the equal pay? What will you have to do as an employer? What kind of enforcement does the Directive foresee? Lastly, did you know that in the US there is an Equal Pay Act that has been in force since 1963? How has that statute been applied in the US and what are the differences and similarities with the European Directive? Our special US guest will teach us some interesting US-insights.  

Click below to listen or access from one of these links: