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Laura Fant is a special employment law counsel in the Labor & Employment Law Department and co-administrative leader of the Counseling, Training & Pay Equity Practice Group. Her practice is dedicated to providing clients with practical solutions to common (and uncommon) employment concerns, with a focus on legal compliance, risk management and mitigation strategies, and workplace culture considerations.

Laura regularly counsels clients across numerous industries on a wide variety of employment matters involving recruitment and hiring, employee leave and reasonable accommodation issues, performance management, and termination of employment . She also advises on preparing, implementing and enforcing employment and separation agreements, employee handbooks and company policies, as well as provides training on topics including discrimination and harassment in the workplace. Laura is a frequent contributor to Proskauer’s Law and the Workplace blog and The Proskauer Brief podcast.

With menopause health benefits emerging as a tool in the war for talent, Rhode Island has recently taken steps to provide express protections related to an employee’s menopause and related conditions.  In addition, the state is also imposing new onboarding notice requirements regarding payment of wages, as summarized below.

The Rhode Island Fair Employment

New York State employers are reminded that, beginning July 31, 2025, they will no longer be required to provide COVID-specific sick time to employees.

Since March 2020, New York employers have been required to provide sick time—above and beyond what is required under the New York Paid Sick Leave Law—for employees who are under

Employers enrolled in E-Verify must now generate Status Change Reports to identify employees whose work permits have been terminated due to changes in temporary status protections or similar programs. 

The recent termination by the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) of removal protections and employment authorization for several hundred thousand individuals covered by Temporary Protected Status

To align with the new statewide paid prenatal leave law, the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection has amended its rules related to the NYC Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (“ESSTA”) to address the paid prenatal leave requirement. The amended rules take effect on July 2, 2025.

As a reminder, effective January