Session
Employment Law Hot Topics
Employment law is evolving rapidly, creating new compliance challenges for Human Resources professionals. This session provides a practical update on significant federal and state developments, including recent court decisions, regulatory changes, and emerging workplace trends. Topics include wage and hour issues, accommodations, leave management, employee classification, investigations, and policy updates. Attendees will gain clear, actionable guidance to reduce risk, strengthen compliance, and confidently navigate today’s increasingly complex employment landscape.
Key Objectives
Identify recent federal and state employment law developments that directly impact HR policies, procedures, and workplace practices. Assess organizational risk areas related to wage and hour compliance, leave management, accommodations, employee classification, and workplace investigations. Apply practical strategies to update policies, improve documentation, and proactively reduce legal exposure in day-to-day HR operations.
Abtin Mehdizadegan
Partner at Hall Booth Smith, P.C.
Abtin is a Partner in our Little Rock, Arkansas, office and represents employers in traditional labor and employment law matters. He has extensive, high-stakes experience defending businesses in class and collective action lawsuits, employment and wage and hour lawsuits, labor grievance and arbitration proceedings, individual and systemic proceedings before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), unfair labor practice charges before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), federal wage and hour audits involving the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (DOL/WHD), unemployment appeals, business disputes, products liability defense, and constitutional law litigation. He has successfully handled appeals before the Supreme Court of Arkansas and the Fifth and Eighth Circuit Courts of Appeal, dozens of lawsuits at the district court level, and serves as an Adjunct Professor teaching Employment Law at the University of Arkansas Little Rock Bowen School of Law.
Misty Borkowski
Partner at Hall Booth Smith, P.C.
Misty Wilson Borkowski is a Partner in Hall Booth Smith, P.C.’s Little Rock office and a leading practitioner in employment-based immigration for the agricultural industry. She advises farms, producers, labor contractors, and ag-related businesses on the full range of workforce immigration matters, with a particular focus on the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program, Department of Labor audits, seasonal workforce planning, and compliance strategies that help operations maintain a stable and legal labor force. Misty also advises agricultural employers on strategies to sponsor H-2A foreign seasonal workers for permanent residency, including EB-3 employment-based petitions and related pathways to retain experienced labor on a long-term basis. She also assists individuals with family-based immigration and naturalization.