Dorsey’s Labor & Employment Group will conduct its 16th annual Symposium, focusing its sessions on the challenges facing in-house employment counsel and human resource professionals, with particular emphasis on recent legislative and regulatory developments. Sessions are designed to help employers identify issues and implement practical solutions and will focus on practical advice for employers in these uncertain and rapidly changing times. Sessions include the nuts-and-bolts of traditional labor law (NLRA, CBAs), generational dynamics in digital communication, practical strategies for multistate compliance, and an employment lawyer’s guide to navigating the AI-driven workplace.
SESSIONS
AI Is Ruining Your Life: An Employment Lawyer’s Guide to Surviving the AI Workplace
Valeria R. Cometto, Assistant General Counsel, Delta Air Lines, Inc.
Henry Adebisi, Susan Lorenc, and Julian Nunally, Dorsey & Whitney LLP
AI was supposed to make work easier. Instead, it is creating new challenges for human resources professionals and in-house counsel. During hiring, employers are flooded with AI-generated applications. Once employees are onboarded, AI is reshaping performance management, discipline, complaints, and personnel decisions. And AI is helping pro se litigants produce complaints sufficient to withstand early dismissal, which increases legal spend and business disruption. This session examines the employment law risks created by AI and offers practical strategies for developing policies, maintaining human oversight, and using AI responsibly.
One Company, Fifty Rulebooks: Practical Strategies for Multistate Employment Compliance
Katie Ervin Carlson, Chief Counsel-North America Employment Law, Howden US
Ryan Gehbauer, Josh Hughes, Susan Lorenc, and Zoe Spector, Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Employers operating across state lines face a familiar problem: one workforce, one culture, and dozens of conflicting legal regimes. Rather than cataloging every state’s rules and managing scores of handbook addenda, this session will equip attendees with a practical framework for analyzing multistate compliance questions, including how to spot the issues that vary most, decide when a single national policy works and when it doesn’t, and build processes that keep pace as the law changes. The panel will then put the framework to work with case studies demonstrating how to approach issues where state law divergence is at its sharpest, with common pitfalls and practical tips drawn from both outside counsel and in-house experience.
Avoiding Big Employment Jury Verdicts: Psychology, Trends, and Practical Defense (and Pre-Defense!) Strategies
Dr. Samantha D. Holmes, Ph.D., Partner, R&D Strategic Solutions
Jillian Kornblatt, Ryan Mick, Elena Modl, and Melissa Raphan, Dorsey & Whitney LLP
This breakout explores jury psychology and recent trends in large employment verdicts, highlighting practices and trial choices that can drive outcomes. Panelists will offer practical, defense-focused guidance on juror selection, working with jury consultants, and trial strategy to mitigate risk and avoid runaway awards. The panel will also highlight day-to-day decisions by HR and management personnel that can mitigate (or exacerbate!) the risk of a punitive jury verdict.
Nuts & Bolts of Traditional Labor Law: NLRA, CBAs, and How They Can Hinge on to Every Employment Issue
Tom Walsh, Executive Director, Volunteer Lawyers Network
Hannah Green, Sam Richter, and Nisha Verma, Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Traditional labor law can feel like a parallel universe operating under entirely different rules. This foundational session cuts through that complexity by providing a clear, accessible overview of the framework governing collective employee rights in both the private and public sectors — the NLRA and NLRB, the structure of the collective bargaining relationship, and the grievance and arbitration process. More importantly, it explains why none of this is academic: from the non-union employee who files a wage complaint with a coworker, to the FEHA plaintiff whose claims are preempted by a CBA, to the employer whose handbook policy triggers an unfair labor practice charge, traditional labor law is already present in the cases employment practitioners handle every day. We will also focus on broader trends on the culture in the workplace and employees’ expectation of organizations, and how a sophisticated under those will equip employers to best handle union organizing efforts or an election, while maintaining their values and mission at the forefront.
You've Got Mail, Teams, Texts, and Emojis: Generations at Work
Victoria del Campo, Principal Attorney, Xcel Energy
Deborah Autrey, Grace Jacobson, and Jack Sullivan, Dorsey & Whitney LLP
Today’s workplace may include employees from five different generations, each bringing distinct experiences, communication styles, and expectations that can influence leadership, teamwork, retention, and organizational culture. This presentation explores the realities—and limitations—of generational labels, examining how many perceived generational conflicts are actually rooted in communication, management, and workplace culture rather than age alone. We will discuss how generational assumptions and stereotypes can create legal risks involving age discrimination, harassment, hiring, promotion, performance management, and workplace communications, including the growing use of emojis and digital collaboration tools. The program also provides practical strategies for building inclusive, high-performing multigenerational teams while reducing legal exposure, strengthening compliance, and improving organizational effectiveness.