7 Credits, Ethics: 0.5, Professionalism: 0.5

• 8:00 am
  • Registration and Continental Breakfast.
• 8:15 to 8:30 am
  • Welcome by NELA-GA President, Julie Oinonen Williams Oinonen, LLC.
• 8:30 am to 9:00 am
  • Arnold Lizana, The Law Offices of Attorney Arnold J. Lizana, III
  • Wage Theft in the Technology Sector: From misclassified customer-success managers to “exempt” help-desk staff, technology employers rank among the most frequent and most sophisticated violators of federal wage-and-hour law. This session shows plaintiff-side practitioners how to identify and litigate FLSA claims against tech companies, with a focus on defeating the computer-employee exemption and the administrative and executive exemptions employers assert as fallbacks. Drawing on real arbitration and collective-action matters, the presenter walks through the exemption battleground, the wage-theft schemes common to always-on tech workplaces, the digital evidence that proves them, and the arbitration and settlement-approval hurdles that shape strategy.
• 9:00 am to 9:30 am
  • Arnold Lizana, The Law Offices of Attorney Arnold J. Lizana, III
  • Advocacy in the New DEI Legal Landscape: The legal terrain around diversity, equity, and inclusion has shifted rapidly amid new federal executive orders, appellate decisions concerning anti-DEI directives, and evolving enforcement priorities. This session helps practitioners advise clients and advocate effectively in that changing landscape by distinguishing lawful inclusion efforts from newly risky practices, understanding the majority-group and “reverse” discrimination theories now gaining traction after recent Supreme Court guidance, and counseling employers and employees on compliance, workplace training, and litigation exposure going forward.
• 9:45 am to 10:45 am
  • Neal Weinrich and Lea Dearing of Berman Fink Van Horn, P.C.
  • Noncompete Updates: Counseling Departing Employees on Restrictive Covenant Matters and Being “Good Leavers”: When an employee is leaving his or employer or when a company is hiring employees from a direct competitor, it is important that the employees leave the right way and in a manner that minimizes the likelihood of a legal dispute. Neal Weinrich and Lea Dearing, partners with Berman Fink Van Horn, a firm well-known in Georgia and nationally for counseling clients on and litigating restrictive covenant and trade secrets disputes, will speak on the do’s and don’ts for counseling employees on being “good leavers”. They will also share insights on various other considerations involved in handling matters involving departing employees, and their discussion will include key updates on current Georgia law in this area
• 10:45 am to 11:45 am
  • Doug Kertscher, Julie Burke, Cheryl Legare
  • Hill, Kertscher & Wharton, LLP / Legare, Attwood & Ragan, LLC
  • Summary Judgment in Lieu of Ismael v. Rountree its Impact, and Update on Efforts in other Circuits to Overturn McDonnell Douglas: From leading Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals practitioners and the attorneys who brought you Ismael v. Rountree: hear the little-known facts that now clearly should be considered–but weren’t by the district court–as part of the convincing mosaic argument in addition to the impact of Ismael on summary judgment, and an update on efforts in other circuits to overturn McDonnell Douglas
• 11:45 am to 12:45 pm
  • Lunch and Announcing NELA 2026 Advocacy Award & Video
• 12:45 pm to 1:45 pm
  • Tamika Sykes, Peter Massaro
  • Sykes Law, LLC / Pines Federal Employment Attorneys, PLLC
  • Representing Federal Employees in the Workplace: Although the process for pursuing employment discrimination claims is very different for federal employees and private sector employees, the EEOC’s decisions and guidance regarding federal employees can reveal the EEOC’s priorities concerning private sector matters. This presentation will briefly discuss the procedure that federal employees must follow to bring claims of discrimination against their employing agencies and appeal their termination to MSPB; explain recent MSPB and EEOC decisions and guidance that have narrowed federal employees’ rights; and highlight how these decisions and guidance could impact the EEOC’s treatment of charges from private sector employees.
• 1:45 pm to 2:45 pm
  • Jermaine “Jay” Walker, HKM Employment Attorneys, LLP
  • Mediation Strategy and Best Practice Tips for Getting Good Outcomes: Managing Partner of Atlanta’s HKM Employment Attorneys discusses the distinctions and nuances between private mediations, EEOC mediations, magistrate judge mediations, and Eleventh Circuit mediations, along with the mechanics of mediation statements and best practices unique to each.
• 2:45 pm to 3:45 pm
  • Dan Werner, Radford Scott, LLC
  • A Review of Tools and Best Practices for Litigating Workers Rights Cases Under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO): The first part of the workshop will be a review of the RICO basics and more recent developments in the law. Most of the workshop will be practical: using a “ripped from the headlines” hypothetical, we will break up into small groups and develop an abbreviated fill-in-the-blank complaint incorporating best practices for (1) pleading RICO enterprises; (2) pleading a pattern of racketeering activity/continuity; (3) addressing potential causation issues; (4) addressing extraterritoriality and in pari delicto concerns: (5) and incorporating charts. Groups will then present their respective “complaints” to the participants. For each group complaint, we collectively will brainstorm about what works (and may not work). The goal is to come out of this workshop knowing enough concrete RICO skills (and related puns) to be dangerous. ¡Qué RICO!
• 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
  • The Honorable Judge Steven D. Grimberg, Federal District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
  • The Judicial Perspective on Ethics and Professionalism: The Honorable Judge Steven D. Grimberg’s perspective on Ethics and Professionalism for Lawyers in 2026.
• 5:00 pm
  • Final Announcements and Adjournment