Employment Law & Regulations

Tammy D. McCutchen is a senior affiliate with Resolution Economics, providing expert services in the Company’s Wage & Hour and Human Capital Strategy groups.

McCutchen became affiliated with Resolution Economics in 2021. She is a nationally recognized expert in all aspects of wage and hour law. Her experience includes regulation drafting and enforcement, conducting internal compliance audits, defending agency investigations, designing compliance applications using smart technology, and serving as a consulting and testifying expert in wage and hour class and collective actions.

Prior to joining the DOL, she served as Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division at the U.S. Department of Labor. Nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, she was the country’s top enforcer of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and wage laws affecting government contractors (the Davis-Bacon Act and the Service Contract Act). She managed an annual budget of $160 million and 1,400 employees, represented by two unions, in more than 250 offices across the country. She was responsible for the issuance of opinion letters and set enforcement policy. She also was the principal architect of the 2004 revisions to the overtime exemption regulations, the most significant overhaul of the regulations in 50 years. Since leaving DOL, she has been the principal author of numerous comments on proposed changes by DOL to the FLSA regulations, including on overtime and independent contractors. She also has defended dozens of employers facing DOL investigations of FLSA, DBA, and SCA compliance.

After serving at the DOL, she practiced law with Littler Mendelson, PC and was a founding vice president and managing director of ComplianceHR. At CHR, she directed the development of the only on-demand suite of intelligent compliance applications focused on helping employers address the ever-changing federal and state employment law requirements on minimum wage, overtime, independent contracting and more. Her Navigator IC and Navigator OT apps assess the risks of classifying workers as independent contractors and employees as overtime exempt as quickly as it takes to fill out an on-line questionnaire. She remains a Strategic Advisor for the company.

Previously, she was in-house counsel for employment at the Hershey Company, practiced law at Skadden Arps, and clerked for Honorable Daniel A. Manion on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Dr. Naomi Abrams holds a Doctorate degree in Occupational Therapy and certification as an ergonomic assessment specialist.  Holding the firm belief that prevention is the least expensive cure, her global consulting firm specializes in occupational health and ergonomics. Developed by Dr. Abrams, her company is the premier provider for the creation and implementation of ergonomics programs to keep employees working at peak performance.  She is a consultant, author, and trainer.  She lectures internationally on occupation-based ergonomics, intervention services, and the aging workforce.

Mario Bordogna is a Partner in the Labor and Employment Practice at the law firm of Bowles Rice, LLP working with employers nationwide on the front end to keep them in legal compliance with labor and employment laws and on the back end if they need a strong and experienced litigation advocate.  For 25 years, Mario has represented employers in sectors like health care, education, energy, hospitality, manufacturing, and others in the areas of HR/employment counseling, employment litigation, wage and hour, harassment, trade secret and non-competition matters, labor-management relations, accommodation, policy development and investigations, and much more.

Shayna Balch is a partner in both the Phoenix and Los Angeles offices. She represents employers in employment and labor litigation matters before federal and state courts as well as before administrative agencies. She handles matters across all facets of labor and employment law including employment discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, restrictive covenants, preventive counseling, employee training, personnel policies, and employment agreements. Shayna has represented clients before trial and appellate courts, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Arizona Civil Rights Division, and United States Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel (OSC).

Penny Wofford is a South Carolina Supreme Court Certified Specialist in Employment and Labor Law. She concentrates her practice in the area of employment litigation and employee benefits. She advises and defends employers, employer sponsored plans, and plan fiduciaries against all types of claims under ERISA and employment discrimination laws. Penny not only provides proactive counseling and legal advice to employers and management regarding human resources issues but also assists employers with the design, drafting, and administration of welfare benefit plans. Penny is a frequent speaker on employee benefits and employee leave topics and regularly provides company and supervisor training on employment discrimination, documentation and confidentiality.

Joseph (“Joe”) Beachboard is a nationally recognized employment lawyer who also closely tracks the most important developments at the U.S. Supreme Court impacting the business community. He has more than 30 years of experience representing management in a wide variety of employment and labor matters in perhaps the most challenging state in the nation for employers – California.  Mr. Beachboard speaks regularly before human resource and employer groups on cutting edge employment law topics.  He is a member of SHRM and has been an annual presenter at both the SHRM Annual Conference and the Employment Law and Compliance Conference for two decades.  Mr. Beachboard is frequently quoted in such leading publications as HR Magazine, National Law Journal, Los Angeles Times, NY Times, HR Executive and Workforce, and has been published in dozens of legal and business journals. Throughout his career in Los Angeles, Mr. Beachboard has represented dozens of studios and entertainment properties.  He cites his most interesting project as working with the cast and crew of the television show The Office, from its pilot through the final season.

Karen Michael is the President of Karen Michael, PLC, an employment law & HR consulting firm founded in 2008.  The firm specializes in management and employee training, workplace investigations, HR Consulting, and employment law advice for the public and private sector.

Karen is a former HR executive and employment attorney with almost three decades years of experience in law and HR. 

Karen writes a weekly labor law article for the Richmond Times Dispatch Business section, and regularly speaks at national and local events, including the national SHRM conference and EEOC’s EXCEl conference.

Karen is the author of “Stay Hired.” 

Alisa A. Shorago, J.D., is an accomplished and entertaining trainer, instructor, and speaker based in Southern California, as well as an attorney with over 15 years’ litigation experience, including experience defending sexual harassment suits.

Alisa began providing sexual harassment prevention training (AB 1825) training because she found it more satisfying to help people stay out of trouble than deal with matters once they had reached the litigation stage. She knew it would be possible to be not only an entertaining sexual harassment trainer but an informative one, so that participants would pay attention and actually learn.

Alisa started her own training company in 2008. Through Shorago Training Services, Alisa provides engaging and informative on-site seminars throughout California and the United States. Her training specialties include not only sexual harassment training but also interesting and fun training in business writing (including email writing), legal writing, business professionalism and etiquette, and workplace communication skills. She has led trainings for companies (including Fortune 100 companies) in a broad range of industries.

Attorney James P. (“Jim”) Reidy is a management-side labor and employment lawyer. He is a partner in the New England based law firm, Sheehan Phinney Bass & Green, PA, where he is the Chair of the firm’s Labor and Employment group. His practice focuses on prevention, training and compliance but he also handles matters when claims arise.

He has more than 35 years of experience in the field and been a media resource on workplace law for media outlets including CNN, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Business Magazine, Bloomberg, NPR, The Associated Press, NPR Market Place, Buzz Feed, Law 360, Inc. Magazine, The HR Power Hour, HR Breakroom, SKI Magazine and HR Magazine as well as several local/regional publications.

In 2020 Jim was inducted as a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. 

Chambers USA and New England Super Lawyers have ranked Jim in the Top Tier of management-side employment lawyers for each year of the last 15 years. Best Lawyers USA named Jim the 2022 Lawyer of the Year for Labor and Employment Law (Manchester, NH) and the NH Business Review named him one of the top 200 most influential business leaders in New Hampshire.

Jim has been a presenter regularly at SHRM’s Legal and Legislative Conference in Washington, DC as well as SHRM’s annual conferences.

Gali Gordon manages Gordon Law Group PC, a boutique immigration law firm in San Francisco. She speaks on immigration issues both nationally and locally, and has served as an expert witness on immigration matters. In 2009, 2010 and 2011, Gali was named a ‘Rising Star’ by Super Lawyers magazine, an honor awarded to the top 2.5 percent of immigration lawyers in Northern California under age 40. Gali graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley and received her law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She spent the first several years of her career at the law firms of Morrison and Foerster LLP and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC, where she represented venture-financed start-up companies, venture capital funds, and Fortune 500 companies, as well as refugees and asylees pro bono. Gali has lived and traveled abroad extensively, and enjoys working with people of different cultures.