Wright Wilmarth Byrd, PLLC

Vicki Wilmarth is reminding employers that they should be preparing for several significant payroll and policy deadlines this summer that are required by new federal employment rules and regulations.

Deadlines Quickly Approaching for Major Employment Law Changes Employers should be preparing for significant payroll and policy deadlines this summer that are required by new federal employment regulations.

Vicki Wilmarth helps employers understand the difficulties of paying employees correctly.

Underpayment of Wages at Local Charity The FLSA “simply” requires payment of minimum wage and overtime. But there are many ways for an employer to unintentionally break this law by underpayment of wages.

If you pay any employees on salary instead of hourly, as an employer you need to review new regulations released today by the United States Department of Labor, requiring that the salary you pay to any exempt employee is at least $43,888.00 beginning on July 1, 2024. That minimum increases to $58,656.00 on January 1, 2025. Those are substantial increases from $35,568.00, the salary minimum currently required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), which governs minimum wage and overtime.

New FLSA Minimum Salary Requirements If you pay any employees on salary instead of hourly, you need to review new regulations released today requiring that the FLSA salary minimum is at least $43,888.00 beginning on July 1, 2024.

Perfect swag from a wonderful client’s HR summit that I spoke at yesterday.

I have said this close to 3 gazillion times in my employment law career. 🤣

Our office is dog-friendly. Here are the latest additions to the WWB doggie daycare.

It’s a milestone birthday for Wade Byrd! His office is filled with black balloons and his coworkers are wearing mourning colors.

Employers are required to grant more religious accommodation requests from their employees because of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. This could mean disruptions to your company's schedules, holidays, dress codes, assignment of duties, etc. Read more on Vicki's latest employment law alert.

Employer Religious Accommodation Obligations Increase In light of a recent United States Supreme Court opinion, your burdens as an employer to accommodate your employee’s religious beliefs and practices have increased.

Wright, Wilmarth & Byrd, PLLC, a respected law firm in Amarillo and a laid back, fun place to work, is seeking a receptionist to provide gracious interaction with clients.

What We Are Looking For:

• Warmth and kindness to clients.
• Excellent verbal communication over the phone and in person.
• Professional written communication skills (polite, spell-checked, grammatically correct).
• Commitment to protecting confidential information.
• Organizational skills.
• Team player who is willing and capable of assisting others when needed.
• Reliable transportation to run firm errands.
• Excellent computer skills (Word required; Clio, Excel, ProDocs, Quickbooks preferred).
• Maturity and professionalism without a lot of drama at work.

What We Offer:

• Competitive pay
• Generous PTO policy
• Health insurance and 401(k) if full-time
• Beautiful new offices in Southwest Amarillo
• Relaxed and friendly attorneys and staff
• Frequent cuddles from the well-behaved office dog(s)

Hours Required: Full-time, or will consider 9-3 p.m. for the right applicant.
Preferred experience: 2+ years of customer service experience

If you are interested in applying for the position, you must send:
1. a well-written cover letter;
2. your resume; and
3. contact information for three references (former managers and coworkers, not just personal friends) to [email protected].

Deadline for submitting this information is January 25, 2023.

Every employer with 15 or more names on the payroll needs to understand its obligations under two new federal laws relating to pregnant and nursing employees. With bipartisan support in Congress, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (PUMP Act) were passed last month and take effect almost immediately.

New Laws Regarding Pregnant and Nursing Employees Every employer needs to understand its obligations under two new federal laws relating to pregnant and nursing employees.

It’s holiday time and that means that the good cheer at office parties may cause business owners and supervisors to worry if they can be liable for their employees’ off-duty conduct. For example, employers want to know if they have any responsibility when a intoxicated employee leaves the Christmas party and then goes home and assaults his wife.

Vicki Wilmarth gives employers the information they need to know about this and other legal issues on the Employer's Advocate.

Are Texas Businesses Liable for Employee Off-Duty Conduct? It’s holiday time and that means that the good cheer at office parties may cause businesses to worry if they can be liable for their employees’ off-duty conduct.

As most local employers know, hiring is hard right now. There are very few applicants and some of those who apply disappear during the hiring process by missing an interview or ghosting your emails and calls.

But don’t let the difficulty of filling an open position tempt you to skip important steps in the hiring process, particularly criminal background checks.

Knowing if your potential employee has a criminal background can prevent many problems down the road. And for some employers in Texas, it is actually required by law. https://theemployersadvocate.com/employers-background-checking-obligations/

Employer's Background Checking Obligations Don’t let labor shortages and hiring difficulties tempt you as a Texas employer to skip criminal background checking.

Wright Wilmarth Byrd has a part-time job opening for an office assistant. The successful applicant will work in a comfortable SW Amarillo office setting with friendly coworkers and a couple of sweet, well-trained office dogs.

Here is a very general job description:

9-3 M-F (expectation is 25-29 hours per week)

Duties:

Greet clients, answer phones, file, make copies, run errands, update clients on status of work, data entry, file docs online, create spreadsheets, organize client documents, perform special projects.

Must be experienced with Word and Excel, would also prefer Quickbooks and legal billing experience.

Needs these skills:
Great communicator (written and oral)
Kind and patient with clients
Extremely organized
Detail oriented
Very proficient in Microsoft Office
Willing to learn

Must have reliable transportation. Mileage for errands is reimbursed.

Reports to Office Manager.

You must send an updated resume and a well-written cover letter to demonstrate your communication abilities if you want to be considered for an interview. Send the resume and cover letter to [email protected].

Vicki Wilmarth is an employment law attorney and business transactions lawyer who's been working in this area for three decades. She knows the local business world. In this conversation with host Jason Boyett, she details the challenges local businesses have faced over the past two years, including worker shortages. But—plot twist!—Vicki is also a passionate birder and photographer, and shares why the Panhandle is such a great place to spot bald eagles and other species. You guessed it: This is a wide-ranging conversation.

🎧 iPhone: bit.ly/heyamarillo
🔉 Spotify: bit.ly/hey_amarillo

OSHA released the vaccine mandate for large employers (100 or more employees company-wide) today. Employees will have to be vaccinated by January 4, 2022, or face weekly COVID testing and constant masking.

Vicki Wilmarth's employment law blog has all the details.

New Federal Vaccine Mandate Immediately Affects Employers with 100+ Employees The Occupational Health and Safety Administration released its new vaccine mandate as an Emergency Temporary Standard today for employers who have at least 100 employees (“large employers”). The ETS is effective on November 5, 2021, and large employers only have 60 days to fully implement their ...

What should a Texas Panhandle employer do to improve recruiting of employees for all those open positions in 2021?

Vicki Wilmarth provides some helpful tips in her latest employment law alert.

How to Hire and Retain During the “Big Quit” During the "Big Quit", what should a Texas Panhandle employer do to improve recruiting of employees for all those open positions in 2021?

Don't forget to enter the BBQ contest this Sunday afternoon at the Tri-State Fair, sponsored by Wright Wilmarth Byrd. You can win cash prizes (1st place = $200) and bragging rights that you are the Panhandle's best BBQ chef.

Here are the rules from the Fair Catalog:https://cdn.saffire.com/files.ashx?t=fg&rid=TriStateFair&f=bbq_KM_C45821061611591.pdf

Vicki Wilmarth is getting a lot of questions about the legality of Texas employers mandating vaccinations for their employees. Here are the answers.

Employers Mandating Employee Vaccinations For private employers in Texas, it is well within the companies’ rights to require their employees to get vaccinated.

Wright, Wilmarth & Byrd, PLLC, a respected law firm in Amarillo and a laid back, fun place to work is seeking an legal secretary to provide support to our lawyers and clients.

What We Are Looking For:

• Respectful, friendly communication with clients.
• Protection of confidential information.
• Commitment to accuracy.
• Organizational skills.
• Meet frequent deadlines.
• Ability to proofread documents.
• Self-starter.
• Team player who is willing and capable of assisting others when needed.
• Reliable attendance.
• Excellent computer skills, particularly with Microsoft Word.
• Knowledge of petitions, answers, motions, discovery and other court proceedings.
• Experience with electronic filing in federal and state courts.
• Maturity and professionalism without a lot of drama.

What We Offer:

• Competitive pay
• Beautiful new offices in Southwest Amarillo
• Relaxed and friendly attorneys and staff
• Frequent cuddles with the well-behaved office dog(s)

Job Type: Part-time (can be flexible and work around a school schedule).

Preferred experience: 2+ years of law firm experience.

If you are interested in applying for the position, you must provide by email both:
1. A well-written cover letter
2. An error-free resume

As Vicki Wilmarth explains in her latest post, small businesses in Texas (those with less than 15 names on the payroll) in September 2021 will no longer be exempt from Texas sexual harassment law, including, based on court cases, harassment of employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It's the last chance for small Texas employers to clean up their acts.

Small Texas Employers Newly Liable for Sexual Harassment Texas employers who have less than 15 employees are no longer protected from sexual harassment claims under the small employer exception.

Age discrimination cases are difficult for employers to win because the elderly make very sympathetic plaintiffs and the judges and jurors themselves are often older. But a recent Fifth Circuit case out of Lubbock gives a blueprint to managers of how to dispassionately and carefully handle the termination of a poor-performing employee.

How Employers Can Do Everything Right Here are eight lessons an employer can learn about winning an age discrimination case by doing everything right.

Governor Greg Abbott banned "vaccination passports" in Texas. What does this mean for your business? Vicki Wilmarth explains how to apply this recent Executive Order.

"No Vaccination Passports": What Does Abbott Mean? How are businesses supposed to respond to Governor Greg Abbott's ban on vaccination passports in the state of Texas? What does his order mean?

Vicki Wilmarth discussed with News Channel 10 whether employers can mandate the COVID-19 vaccination for employees.

Law experts share how employers can require workers to receive vaccine Now that vaccine distribution is ramping up, the question of whether employers can require workers to get it remains.

Small employers have several reasons to be encouraged by the stimulus bill, including the option of continuing to get a tax credit for COVID-related leave, new "Second Draw" PPP loans and other benefits.

How the Stimulus Bill Benefits Small Employers The stimulus bill signed at the end of December 2020 provides small employers with several benefits, including payroll tax credit extension.

Texas employers are asking if they can require their employees to get vaccinated when vaccines become available to more of the public. In general, the answer is, yes, an employer can require employees get vaccinated in order to provide employees and customers a safe environment.

Can an Employer Require COVID-19 Vaccinations of Employees? Texas employers are asking if they can require COVID-19 vaccinations of their employees. In general, the answer is yes.

COVID-19 infections in the Texas Panhandle are raging like a wildfire, so what is an employer’s duty to prevent its spread and what procedures should be followed with COVID-positive employees and quarantined employees?

COVID-19 Wildfire in the Texas Panhandle COVID-19 infections in the Texas Panhandle are raging like a wildfire, so what is an employer's duty to prevent its spread and what procedures should be followed with COVID-positive employees, quarantines, and employees whose off-duty behavior is pyromaniacal?

Wright Wilmarth Byrd law firm has an opening for a part-time file clerk/runner. Must be 18 or older. Great verbal and written communication skills are required. Send a resume and well-written cover letter to [email protected].

Even though the idea has been in the news recently, at the current time there is no absolute liability immunity for Texas employers from COVID-19-related claims made by employees who are exposed to the virus in your workplace or otherwise harmed during the pandemic. As an employer, you can be sued for many different legal failures as an employer during this crisis, so you should know what the law expects of you right now.

Read more in Vicki Wilmarth's employment law blog:

Ten Ways to Get Sued by Employees During a Pandemic I've narrowed the possibilities of a Texas employer getting sued sued by employees during this global pandemic down to these ten mistakes.

The United State Supreme Court today outlawed LGBT discrimination in employment based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a 6-3 decision written by Trump appointee Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Court said plainly, “An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law”. Here is what employers need to know about applying this opinion in the workplace.

Supreme Court Outlaws Discrimination Against LGBT Employees The United State Supreme Court ruled today in Bostock v. Clayton County that employers may be sued for discrimination against LGBT employees.

Late last week, the Small Business Administration posted interim rules and the application for employers to complete when seeking forgiveness of their Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loan.

This guidance, which for many businesses comes almost at the end of the 8-week covered period for spending PPP funds, provides employers with many of the answers we have been waiting for since the CARES Act was passed in March.

Vicki Wilmarth explains the details of PPP loan forgiveness in her latest blog post.

SBA Finally Provides PPP Forgiveness Guidance The SBA has finally issued the PPP loan forgiveness application and guidance on how to spend your PPP loan money to eliminate or minimize the amount you must repay.

The SBA has issued new guidance that small businesses who borrowed less than $2 million in Paycheck Protection Program loan funds are deemed to have certified in good faith that the funds were "necessary". Nice to know that we won't be audited or go to jail for borrowing that money to try to keep our businesses afloat in one of the greatest economic upheavals in our lifetimes. Vicki Wilmarth provides the explanation of this in her latest blog post.

Whew! Your PPP Loan Was "Necessary" The SBA has clarified that small businesses who borrowed less than $2 million in PPP funds are no longer in danger if their loan wasn't "necessary".