Business Law Blog

Since 2000, I’ve been an attorney in the state of Washington, gaining diverse experience working in sectors including technology, taxation, food and beverage, and agriculture.

For eight of those years, I served as in-house counsel for large corporations (Darigold, Green Giant and Tree Top) and I became closely involved with a wide range of corporate legal issues. Because of this, I was able to gain legal experience in a number of areas—ones that external counsel will probably never deal with. [Read more…] about Do you really need an attorney who has in-house experience working for large companies?

The characterization of compensation as either piece work or hourly forms the basis for a wage dispute between Hill and Xerox. Piece rate employees are paid a rate of pay for completing a certain task, for example, when an apple picker is paid for each bin of apples picked. An hourly employee is a person that is paid by the hour, and not paid for completing a task. If a person is paid by the hour, one must be paid at least minimum wage for each hour worked in the State of Washington. If a person is a piece rate employee, the employer may use workweek averaging to calculate minimum wage compliance. In workweek averaging, so long as the rate of pay is at or above minimum wage, some of the hours worked can be paid at a rate under minimum wage. [Read more…] about Is a person working at a call center a piece rate worker or an hourly employee under Washington State Law?