/9918578/Banner

/9918578/Banner_2

/9918578/Mid

section

articleId

product

orgType

parrefer

accountID

Consulting

Banking

Accounting

Fintech

Internships

Rankings

Internship Rankings

Intern Resource Center

Explore Internships

Vault Law Home

Practice Area Resource Centers

Regional Resource Centers

Summer Program Resource Center

Vault Law Culture & Inclusion Survey

Vault Law

Guides

Events

Financial Services

Technology

Grad School

Work Relationships

Productivity

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Social Impact

Remote Work

Negotiating

Changing Jobs

Workplace Issues

Blog

Resume Samples

Cover Letter Samples

Interview Tips & Questions

A Day in the Life

International

Career Readiness

Explore Professions

Research Industries

Search Companies

Career Advice

Employers

Schools

&lt;p&gt;Consider the ball officially rolling: another intern is suing. Lucy Bickerton, a former intern at the Charlie Rose show, worked 25 hours per week, without pay. Her law firm, Outten &amp;amp; Golden (the same one that&#39;s representing Xuedan Wang&#39;s suit with Hearst), is hoping to turn the suit into a class action for all the show&#39;s unpaid interns as far back as March 2006.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As the lawsuit notes, &quot;an unpaid internship is only lawful in the context of an educational training program, when the interns do not perform productive work and the employer derives no benefit.”&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But some are claiming that this stipulation, taken from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Department Of Labor&#39;s factsheet on Internship Programs&lt;/a&gt;, was originally intended to apply to blue collar work, which was mainly what young workers were &quot;interning&quot; when the laws originated.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With much of today&#39;s companies running on less-concretely defined &quot;intellectual labor,&quot; so to speak, it can be difficult to say which activities are to the employee&#39;s benefit, and which are to the company&#39;s. After all, it&#39;s important for interns to actually perform tasks if they&#39;re going to learn them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The problems are more clearly defined with a closer look at the benefits of those tasks, for the company. If work doesn&#39;t involve much training—like reception duties, or filling in spreadsheets, it&#39;s probably not in the intern&#39;s best interests to be doing it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ditto for work that&#39;s clearly an important job function for a paid employee—such as &quot;receptionist&quot;: if you&#39;re likely replacing a paid employee (as in, you can literally turn your tasks into a job title) consider the $30,000+ annually you&#39;re saving the company a clear-cut benefit. For them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For more info on internship guidelines, check out the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Department of Labor&#39;s&lt;/a&gt; page—and stay tuned for more lawsuit news.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;--Cathy Vandewater, Vault.com&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Read More: &lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog/workplace-issues/are-unpaid-internships-fair/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Are Unpaid Internships Fair?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog/workplace-issues/the-other-problem-with-unpaid-internships/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;The Other Problem With Unpaid Internships&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Department of Labor: Internship Guidelines&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Cathy Vandewater

Article

National Fun at Work Day: When Team-Building Works and When It Backfires

How LinkedIn Can Create Unrealistic Career Expectations

Do Performance Reviews Actually Improve Performance?

Holiday Party Etiquette 101: Tips to Shine Without Embarrassment

The Library