Insights

Washington – July 14, 2022: The National Law Journal named Crowell & Moring counsel Katie Erno to its 2022 list of Employment Law Trailblazers. The list features lawyers who are “agents of change” and have made significant marks on their sector.

Washington – January 2, 2020: Crowell & Moring elected eight lawyers to the firm’s partnership, effective January 1, 2020. The firm also promoted seven attorneys to the position of senior counsel, and 26 associates to the position of counsel. The new partners have been promoted from within the ranks of the firm’s Washington, Los Angeles, and San Francisco offices. The new partners have been promoted from across offices and practice groups, including White Collar & Regulatory Enforcement, Health Care, International Trade, Intellectual Property, Privacy & Cybersecurity, Government Contracts, Litigation, and Antitrust.

On October 16, 2026, the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire denied Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast, Inc.’s motion to dismiss the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) Title VII sex discrimination lawsuit arising from a women-only company-sponsored event. The Court held that the EEOC had “plausibly met” the applicable legal standard “by pointing to missed networking opportunities, the potential deprivation of paid time off, and the denial of perks including a company-paid hotel stay, food, and beverages.” This ruling is a clear sign that employer-sponsored events limited to employees of one sex carry legal risk, even when the employer’s intent is to address workforce imbalances or attendance at the event does not lead to measurable advantages. 

On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a formal opinion concluding that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) existing interpretations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) disparate-impact liability, including the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), are unconstitutional. According to the opinion, EEOC’s prior interpretations contemplate liability based on disproportionately adverse effects alone, without regard to an employer’s likely intent, rather than treating disparate impact as an evidentiary mechanism to “smoke out” intentional discrimination. DOJ found that this approach functions as a “qualified racial-proportionality mandate” that places “a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies, and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes.” The opinion fulfills one mandate of Executive Order 14281, which rejected disparate-impact liability insofar as it “creates a near insurmountable presumption that unlawful discrimination exists wherever there are any differences in outcomes among different [demographic groups].”

On Friday, April 10, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) has agreed to pay just over $17 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by failing to comply with federal anti-discrimination requirements incorporated into its federal contracts due to allegedly discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) employment practices. This resolution marks the first FCA settlement secured by the DOJ under its Civil Rights Fraud Initiative, created in May 2025, and announced by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as part of the administration’s coordinated efforts to target allegedly unlawful DEI practices. Per the agreement, the settlement is neither an admission of liability by IBM nor a concession by the United States that its claims are not well founded.

Please join us on Wednesday, November 10 at 3 pm EST, for a follow-up presentation on the Federal Contractor Vaccine Mandate.  The Safer Federal Workforce Task Force has issued additional guidance and certain federal agencies have elaborated on their policies for implementing the new federal requirements.  Our webinar will discuss key developments that have arisen in recent weeks, challenges that contractors are facing, and common questions.  We hope you will join us.  If there are particular topics or questions you would like us to address, we encourage you to reach out to any of the presenters in advance.

In this episode, Crowell's Rebecca Springer, Katie Erno, and Cori Schreider discuss legal considerations for employers when it comes to restricting political speech and expression in the workplace and voting leave obligations. The Lightning Round podcast is Crowell's monthly rundown on developments and trends in the Labor and Employment space.

In this episode, Crowell’s Rebecca Springer and Katie Erno break down the latest U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Trump v. Slaughter and West Virginia v. BPJ, unpacking the most important takeaways for employers. The Lightning Round podcast is Crowell's monthly rundown on developments and trends in the Labor and Employment space.