New Legal Rules For Unpaid Internship Programs

Your summer interns have only just arrived - and, as you may have heard, the law governing classification of interns has changed. On July 2nd, the federal appeals court issued its long-awaited decision in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc. Here's what you need to know to evaluate whether your summer internship program is compliant with the new court test and to start your planning for the fall.  

Background

In 2013, federal judge William H. Pauley III ruled in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc., that Fox had violated state and federal minimum wage laws by failing to pay interns who worked on the production of its Oscar-winning film Black Swan. Judge Pauley held that the interns should have been treated as employees and paid at least minimum wage, where their job duties consisted of largely menial tasks such as filing and fetching coffee. Judge Pauley also certified a New York "class" of interns for class action purposes, and provisionally agreed