Employment Law & Regulations

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.

Lynn has been practicing employment law exclusively on the management side for over 20 years. She began her legal career in San Francisco at Littler, Mendelson, the renown leader in the field of employment law. She later moved to Fisher & Phillips LLP, where she became an equity partner in 1995.

 Lynn has conducted hundreds of face-to-face employment law training programs for both supervisors and employees, specializing in all forms of employee and managerial employment law-related training. Lynn has also represented many private and public entities in harassment and discrimination charges and litigation.  She has testified as an expert witness in unlawful harassment matters, and frequently conducts “remedial” training for supervisors or executives who have been accused of harassment or discrimination.

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.

John Fay is an attorney and technologist with a deep applied knowledge of business immigration, I-9 compliance and E-Verify rules and procedures.  During his twenty-plus year career, John has advised corporations, educational institutions, and individuals on a variety of U.S. immigration and I-9 issues.  At the same time, he has also been uniquely involved in information technology, having designed several immigration and I-9 management software applications.

As Director of Product Strategy at Equifax, John provides strategic leadership and direction in the development and support of Form I-9, E-Verify, and immigration case management software solutions.

For over 20 years, Allison West has used her employment law background in delivering customized workplace training, conducting investigations, coaching executives/managers, serving as an expert witness, and specializing in conflict resolution and facilitated discussions to create more collaborative work environments. 

Allison is a top-rated speaker at the SHRM Annual Conference as well as other HR/diversity conferences, and is a national expert on harassment, discrimination and investigations. She has appeared on PBS, CBS This Morning and in O Magazine discussing workplace harassment issues. 

She is a member of the State Bar of California and holds her SHRM-SCP certification and AWI-CH (investigation) certificate.

Toni Pilzner is an attorney with more than 15 years' experience in advising employers on creating and administering employee welfare and retirement benefit plans. Having worked as a certified public accountant and as an in-house corporate tax analyst dealing with employee benefit plan matters before becoming an attorney, she also understands the financial and practical aspects of employee benefit plan administration. Toni has shared her expertise with SHRM members by presenting concurrent sessions on employee benefits topics at a number of SHRM conferences in addition to writing SHRM Legal Alerts and contributing to SHRM Online articles on employee benefit matters. She also served on the SHRM Total Rewards Special Expertise Panel and its predecessor, the SHRM Compensation and Benefits Committee, as well as serving a three-year term on the U.S. Department of Labor's ERISA Advisory Council.

James J. McDonald, Jr. is a partner in the Irvine, California and Tampa, Florida offices of Fisher & Phillips LLP, where he is a litigator, trial lawyer and strategic advisor to employers regarding labor and employment law matters.  He is author of the SHRM-published book, California Employment Law: An Employer’s Guide, and he is a frequent speaker on employment law issues.  He is a cum laude law graduate of Georgetown University and a member of the California and Florida Bars, and he holds the SHRM-SCP certification.