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Jurate Schwartz

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Jurate Schwartz is a senior counsel in the Labor & Employment Law Department. She devotes her practice to counseling clients in employment matters, as well as representing employers in federal and state litigations, arbitrations and administrative proceedings.

Jurate’s practice includes providing advice on compliance with various laws affecting the workplace, including the FMLA, ADEA, Title VII, ADA, FLSA and similar state and local laws. She counsels clients on developing, implementing and enforcing personnel policies and procedures and reviewing and revising multi-state employee handbooks under federal, state and local laws. Jurate also advises clients on policy and training issues, including discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage and hour, employee classification, accomodation of religious beliefs, pregnancy and disability, and leaves of absence, including vacation and paid time off policies, multi-state paid sick and safe leave laws and paid family and medical leave laws. Jurate is experienced in conducting wage-and-hour audits under federal and state wage-hour laws and advising clients on classification issues. She also assists clients in drafting employment, independent contractor, consulting and separation agreements as well as various restrictive covenants.

In addition to counseling, Jurate litigates employment disputes of all types, including claims of employment discrimination, harassment, retaliation, whistleblowing, breach of contract, employment-related torts and claims under federal and state wage-and-hour laws. Jurate also assists clients in matters involving trade secrets and non-competes, as well as nonsolicitation, nondisclosure agreements and other restrictive covenants.

Jurate has been ranked by Chambers USA in Florida since 2012. One client comments, "I am a client with extremely high expectations and Proskauer never ceases to exceed them. Jurate has a perfectionist personality and that fits well with how we operate."

Jurate’s pro bono work includes service on the HR committee of a not-for-profit organization, the YMCA of South Palm Beach County, Florida, and assisting other not-for-profit organizations with employment matters, as well as her successful representation of an unaccompanied immigrant child in an asylum proceeding referred by the National Center for Refugee & Immigrant Children.

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In the second in a series of blogs examining often overlooked or misunderstood provisions of common employment laws, today we are covering four things employers may not know about the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (“USERRA”).

USERRA generally protects military service members and veterans from discrimination based on their military service.  Among…

Effective July 1, 2024, the Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance (“Ordinance”) will entitle eligible employees to accrue up to 40 hours of Paid Leave and up to 40 hours of Paid Sick Leave in a 12-month period and carryover certain leave into the next year.  Eligible employees will begin to…

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of employers with remote employees has significantly increased. Employers are reminded to monitor employment laws and ensure compliance in all jurisdictions in which they have employees performing work. Numerous employment laws—such as non-discrimination, anti-harassment, wage and hour, and leaves of absence—may cover employees performing work in remote locations, regardless…

On April 29, 2024 the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) published its final guidance on harassment in the workplace.

As Proskauer previously covered, this final guidance follows proposed guidance, which the EEOC published on October 2, 2023. According to a press release issued by the EEOC, the final guidance “updates, consolidates, and replaces…

On October 2, 2023, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) published long-anticipated proposed guidance related to workplace harassment. If adopted by the EEOC, the enforcement guidance would supersede four existing EEOC guidance documents issued during the 1990s, as well as a section of the EEOC Compliance Manual on harassment. Members of the public have…

In this episode of The Proskauer Brief, senior counsels Jurate Schwartz, Joshua Fox, and special employment law counsel Laura Fant discuss the new standard on personnel policies and workplace rules set forth by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in its August 1, 2023 decision in Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113 (2023)…