What Attendees and Students are saying about Jim’s Workshops and Courses:
- “This was one of the best CLEs you have provided. Please bring this presenter back again.” — Attorney Hera W.
- “The instructor exhibited great expertise in the field of employment law, and presented the program in the most interesting manner.” — Attorney Stanford H.
- “Absolutely one of the best CLE classes I’ve taken. Very thorough and informative.” — Attorney Matt M.
— Labor & Employment Law Update, Classroom-based, 7 CLE hours, McDevitt & Kline Inc.
*********************************************************************************
- “This professor was absolutely fantastic…. This was a great course.”
- “This professor did an excellent job and I looked forward to learning the material taught in this course.”
- “I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed the course and how beneficial it is going to be to my career.”
- “It was truly a pleasure to be in Professor Castagnera’s class.”
What does the professor need to improve?
- “You can’t improve upon perfection”
- “The class was great, no improvements needed.”
- “Nothing, loved him!”
— Human Resource Management, Online Course, Drexel University Law School
*********************************************************************************
“Dr. Castagnera did a truly remarkable job with this course. The course material was challenging and relevant for our prospective careers. I must say I would recommend to every student in my department that they should take this course. The course was actually fun with respect to analyzing new information.”
“Dr. Castagnera, Thank you for the course in HLS that you taught me over the summer. It was an eye-opener and I hope it is never removed from the required courses in the program.”
— Civil Liberties and National Security, Online Course, Rider University
*********************************************************************************
“Great class and great incorporation of chemistry and conflict. The negotiations we participated in were incredible.”
— Chemistry and Conflict, Classroom-based Honors Course, Rider University
*********************************************************************************
“Hi, Jim, Thank you for a wonderful semester. The Computer Science students raved about the course.” — Dr. John Bochanski, Director, Computer Science, Rider University (CSC 150 – Cyber-Ethics, classroom-based course)
*********************************************************************************
How to Establish and Sustain a Faculty Mentoring Program
Best For: Higher Education
Date/Time: 5/07/2019, 1 PM Eastern
Presenter(s): James Ottavio Castagnera, Ph.D. and Attorney at Law
Price: $299.00 webinar or Digital Download, $399.00 webinar and Digital Download. Each option may be viewed by an unlimited number of attendees in one room. DL includes full audio presentation, question and answer session, and presentation slides.
Summary: Please join Dr. Jim Castagnera, Esq., as he walks you through the theory and practice, policies and procedures of an effective faculty mentoring program. The associate provost & legal counsel for academic affairs at Rider University for 22 years, Jim is a founder and co-chair of his institution’s Faculty Mentoring Committee.
*********************************************************************************
Title-IX Sexual Assault Investigations and Adjudications: You Ready to Know About DOE’s New Rule?
Live Webinar
- 90 minutes
-
16 Days LeftMay 14, 2019
-
01:00 PM – 02:30 PM ET
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM PT
Once upon a time Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments Act was viewed as only requiring equal athletic opportunities for female college students. Then along came President Barack Obama’s call for eradication of sexual assault on college campuses. The U.S. Department of Education rose to the challenge. Building on an earlier “Dear Colleagues” letter that asserted Title IX’s application to sexual harassment,the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights issued rules requiring all colleges and universities to investigate and adjudicate student allegations of sexual assault.
Inside Higher Ed goes on to observe, “The rule, which DeVos argued would restore fairness to the process of adjudicating complaints, also adds protections for accused students. But women’s groups and advocates for survivors of sexual assault warn that it will undermine the rights of victims. And they say the rule will let colleges off the hook for not taking the issue of sexual misconduct seriously.”
Among the key changes the new rule will work:
- Institutions will be responsible only for investigating misconduct that occurs within programs sanctioned by the institution.
- Investigations will be mandated only when the institution has actual knowledge of alleged misconduct.
- Accused student will have the righto cross examine their accusers and other adverse witnesses.
- Institutions will be permitted to raise the standard of guilt from mere preponderance of the evidence to “clear weight of the evidence”
Join this session by expert speaker Dr. Jim Castagnera, where he will provides the rule, which DeVos argued would restore fairness to the process of adjudicating complaints, also adds protections for accused students. But women’s groups and advocates for survivors of sexual assault warn that it will undermine the rights of victims.
Session Highlights:
- How will the DOE’s November 2018 Proposed Rule change the way universities investigate and adjudicate sexual assaults under Title IX?
- What will not change, even if the Proposed Rule is adopted in full?
- Should my university change the standard of proof from “more likely than not” to “clear weight of the evidence”?
- What have we learned during the past five years about training, investigation and adjudicate that will remain best practices regardless of whether or not the Proposed Rule is adopted?
- If the new Rule is adopted as proposed, should my institution stick with our more “victim friendly” policies and procedures? What does five years of experience and data tell us about the efficacy of current practices?
- What are the top ten tips for preventing and/or winning law suits that spring from sexual assault investigations and adjudications?
Why You Should Attend:
This webinar accomplishes two urgent, related goals:
- It enables attendees to take the pulse of their current Title IX policies and programs: are they compliant with current legal requirements and best practices?
- It lays out the planning process that college and university administrators should pursue to be ready for the new DOE Rule, which almost certainly will be adopted.
Who Should Attend:
- Vice presidents of academic and student affairs
- University legal counsels
- Title IX officers
- Public safety officers
- Resident life professionals
- HR managers
- All administrators who investigate and/or adjudicate sexual assault cases
*********************************************************************************
Wage & Hour Update for Financial Institutions
Join Dr. Jim Castagnera, Esq., an employment attorney of nearly 40 years’ experience – including significant audit & litigation experience against the DOL’s Wage & Hour Division – as he walks you through the exempt v. non-exempt mine field that is being laid down for the financial services industry.
Why Now
Is Your Financial Institution Ready for the New Wage & Hour Regs? Or Is It Time to Audit Your “Exempt” Employee Categories Before Minimum Salaries Jump 50%? Three years of rulemaking and federal court litigation during the Obama administration, and much bureaucratic dithering during both the past and current administrations, the U.S. Department of Labor has finally released its newly revised rules for exempt employees – those executives, administrators and professionals not covered by the minimum-wage and overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Under the proposed regulations – now out for public comment and almost certainly destined to be the new law of the land – the minimum weekly salary will jump from $455 to $679. That’s a 50% hike. Put in annual terms, it’s a bump up from $23,600 to $35,308. If your institution employs “exempt” personnel earning less than $35,000, then perhaps now’s the time to consider if they are more appropriately classified as hourly workers. Or if not, how to ensure they measure up to the federal and – the possibly more stringent – state standards.
But it’s not just about the wages earned either. The DOL Wage & Hour Division Fact Sheet for the financial industry says, “Employees in the financial services industry generally meet the duties requirements for the administrative exemption…”, EXCEPT WHEN THEY DON’T. For example, did you realize that employees who sell financial products don’t qualify? And did you know that in recent class-action suits a major American bank paid out $36 million in 2015 and another $7 million in 2017 to its residential real estate appraisers, whom the bank had mistakenly classified as exempt employees?
Why This Webinar
Bottom line: In promulgating the new regulations the DOL is wielding a two-edged sword. On its first swing (the looming regulations), you may find yourself paying higher salaries to misclassified employees AND then getting penalized for the misclassification when the blade swings back the other way in a Wage & Hour audit.
Join Dr. Jim Castagnera, Esq., an employment attorney of nearly 40 years’ experience – including significant audit & litigation experience against the DOL’s Wage & Hour Division – as he walks you through the exempt v. non-exempt mine field that is being laid down for the financial services industry.
What You Will Learn
Avoid this potential double-whammy by learning:
- How to determine which of your employees meet one of the three exemptions and which do not
- How to write job descriptions that capture the specific job duties that the DOL identifies as meeting one or more of the exemptions in the financial service industries
- How to monitor your day-to-day workforce activities to ensure that “exempt” employees really are doing what their job descriptions claim they are
- For those employees who can’t meet exemption standards and who must work long hours, running up overtime, how you may be able to design such salary options as a “fluctuated workweek” plan, to get that OT under control
- What’s happening to the annual minimum compensation level for so-called “highly compensated employees” in financial services
- If bonuses and incentives can be used to cover the looming 50% salary boost
- How state W&H laws figure into the mix, potentially creating a perfect storm
- AND MUCH MORE!
**********************************************************************************
Managing the Three ‘I’s of Institutional Research: Institutional Research Board, Research Integrity, and Intellectual Property
Best For: Higher Education
Date/Time: 5/23/2019, 1 PM Eastern
Presenter(s): James Ottavio Castagnera, Ph.D. and Attorney at Law
Price: $299.00 webinar or Digital Download, $449.00 webinar and Digital Download. Each option may be viewed by an unlimited number of attendees in one room. DL includes full audio presentation, question and answer session, and presentation slides.
Summary: Please join Dr. Jim Castagnera for a comprehensive session that explores key considerations for your school’s research activities.
*********************************************************************************
Employee Background Checks for Financial Institutions
Choose Option
Please Select an Option
|
Date: 5/30/2019, 11 AM Central
Duration: Scheduled for 90 minutes including question and answer session. Presenter(s): Dr. James Ottavio Castagnera, attorney at law Price: $299.00 webinar, $349.00 Download, $399.00 webinar and Download. Each option may be viewed by an unlimited number of attendees in one room using one unique login. DL includes full audio presentation, question and answer session and presentation slides. Credits: Live webinar approved for 1.5 NASBA credit hours (Business Law). Who Should Attend? HR, in-house counsel, chief financial officers, security officers, compliance officers |
Employee background checks are an inescapable reality for financial institutions. And while developing and administering an appropriate background check program has always presented tricky compliance issues for banks and credit unions, regulatory and legal developments in this area have made compliance both more challenging and more important.
Financial institutions face greater potential challenges and pitfalls in conducting background checks, as they are subject not only to industry-specific background check laws and regulations, but also have to deal with the laws and regulations that impact employers generally. From the EEOC’s comprehensive guidance on the use of criminal background checks, to the CFPB’s regulations regarding background checks for loan originators, financial institutions face an alphabet soup of legal requirements in implementing a background check program. What’s more, states are increasingly adding to this mix by taking up the issues of employer use of criminal background checks and credit history reports.
This webinar is designed to help financial institutions safely wade through the legal issues associated with employee background checks. It will provide a comprehensive overview of the laws governing employee background checks conducted by financial institutions — including both criminal background checks and credit history reports. Please join attorney Jim Castagnera as he guides you through the complicated issues financial institutions face in complying with the sometimes confusing and seemingly conflicting requirements surrounding background checks for employees.
jamescastagnera.wordpress.com 