SYRACUSE — An attorney with Syracuse–based law firm Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC will lead the New York State Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section for the next year. John Gaal became chairman of the section in June. He has been a member of the bar association for 33 years and is a past […]
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SYRACUSE — An attorney with Syracuse–based law firm Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC will lead the New York State Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section for the next year.
John Gaal became chairman of the section in June. He has been a member of the bar association for 33 years and is a past chairman of the Young Lawyers Section.
Gaal has also been a member of the association’s House of Delegates, Special Committee on AIDS and the Law, and Special Committee on Mandatory Pro Bono Service. He has been with Bond, Schoeneck & King since 1978.
The labor and employment law landscape has been shifting lately as the National Labor Relations Board has been changing the way it approaches some issues. And while many clients assume that the National Labor Relations Act affects only unionized workplaces, that’s not the case, Gaal notes.
Non-union employers need to pay close attention to the act and the labor board as well, he says.
One recent area of activity for the board has been social media. The board has been exploring whether company policies regarding social-media use conflict with employee rights established under the labor act, Gaal says.
The board has seemed more open to that possibility of late, he explains.
The economy also continues to challenge many employers.
“We’re still dealing with it,” Gaal says. “Nobody had a crystal ball before and it’s even less so now.”
Labor and employment attorneys have been seeing more activity in collective wage and hour claims filed by employees, Gaal adds. Discrimination cases also continue to be an issue for employers and employees.
The changing technology landscape is perhaps the biggest current challenge for labor lawyers, Gaal says. Lawyers can’t afford to ignore social media in particular.
“Understanding how these things apply in a workplace is a challenge for labor and employment lawyers,” he says. “You can no longer risk not understanding what Facebook and LinkedIn are.”
If lawyers don’t take the time to learn about those technologies and how employees might be using them, they’re not serving their clients well, he adds. The technologies change so rapidly that keeping up takes effort, Gaal notes.
Even simple email communications with clients can raise issues.
Most employers these days have policies in place stating that they can examine and monitor any communications that pass through their systems. An attorney getting email from clients’ work addresses might want to advise them to use a different account, Gaal says.
Gaal’s section is launching a new mentoring program this year. Organizers have matched 30 mentors with young lawyers starting out in the field.
It’s an effort to help young attorneys learn about the benefits of bar and section membership, Gaal says.
Some of those young attorneys might not even have jobs yet, he adds. Reaching out to them and getting them involved with the bar association early can inform them of how the group can help.
Most of the young lawyers who signed up from the program are from Downstate. Gaal says the section is hoping to draw more interest from upstate New York in the future.
A new group of mentors and young attorneys will be matched every year, he says.
The bar association has 77,000 members statewide and the Labor and Employment Law Section has more than 2,300 members.