Business Sorority - Monthly Event - February

Common Employment Mistakes Small Businesses Make (and How to Avoid Them)

Small business owners are often hard-working, diligent, busy entrepreneurs, frequently pulled in the many directions of their operations and often overextended. In their haste to build and maintain their businesses, they often inadvertently overlook important legal considerations of operating a business.  Even the most well-intentioned companies may find themselves making a number of potentially serious legal mistakes, which not only expose them to legal disputes but also are time consuming and expensive.  This presentation addresses common mistakes small businesses make in their employment operations and discusses strategies to avoid those missteps.

Renee Hughes has been an employment lawyer and litigator for over 20 years. Her extensive legal experience in the area of employment law includes advising and representing employers, executives and professionals on matters involving employment and other contracts; wage and hour issues under federal and state law; non-competition and confidentiality agreements; trade secret matters; and discrimination and retaliation matters under various federal and state statutes such as Title VII, the ADA, and REDA. She also represents employers before various administrative agencies such as the EEOC and Department of Labor, and conducts training for employers on employment issues, such as wage and hour compliance and discrimination and harassment. She also drafts employee handbooks, personnel policies, employment agreements and severance agreements.

She has been named to Business North Carolina Magazine’s Legal Elite Hall of Fame each year for Employment Law since 2012 and has consistently been named to Best Lawyers in Americafor Employment Law – Management and for Litigation – Labor and Employment and as a Super Lawyer by Super Lawyers Magazine. Renee has also been elected as a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, which reserves membership to less than one percent of all lawyers practicing in each jurisdiction.

Before entering law school in 1999, Renee worked as the Court Advocate for battered women in Wilmington, NC for six years.