We at Manpower believe this site is truly unique.  For the first time in recorded history, a lawyer is doing something for free.

This blog -- or blawg -- is designed to provide you with up-to-the-minute employment law information without putting you to sleep.  Take a look around. You'll find entertaining videos, provocative questions, practical tools, legal alerts -- even an employment law sing-a-long.  We'll do everything we can to keep you up on the law and out of jail.

Thanks for visiting,

Mark

We have two winners in our official “Smartest Person in our Audience” Contest following yesterday’s webinar.

Congrats to ALEX and DALE who finished in a virtual tie for first place. In recognition of their efforts, they will each receive a $100 gift card good for any of the fine merchants on giftcertificates.com.

For the record, the correct answers to the quiz questions were C, B, D, A and D.

Thanks again to all who participated!

Another huge THANKS to the 3,000+ of you who attended yesterday’s webinar!

If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, below is a convenient SlideShare version. If you’d like to watch the full-blown version (with all my pithy commentary), click here.

I’m pleased to announce the winners of our contests during today’s webinar …

The winner of our Tweet-o-Rama (correct answer: Lady Gaga) was Kimberlee Campbell.

The winner of our Text-o-Rama #1 (correct answer: lie) was Mark Story. The winner of Text-o-Rama #2 was Lisha Akers.

Congratulations – we’ll send each of you a fabulous prize!

Thanks again to the 3,000+ of you who participated in today’s webinar!

As promised, below is the Blawg’s official 2012 Employment Law Tool Box. Open it up and you’ll find loads of helpful (and free) tools to help you avoid court and/or jail, including:

• a glossary to help decode the alphabet soup of employment laws;
• cheat sheets on every major employment law;
• an overview of the interplay among the ADA, FMLA and WC;
• an investigation checklist;
• termination tools;
• an overview of wage and hour basics;
• tips on avoiding retaliation;
• a sample social media policy; and
• tools for reducing legal fees.

Enjoy and thanks again for joining us today! (If you’d prefer the Tool Box in a pdf format, click here. And, as always, please keep our official disclaimer in mind.)

Want to stay up-to-speed on the law and out of jail? Click here to join the 7,000+ highly intelligent individuals who subscribe to our Employment Law Alerts.

Every other week or so, I send out a brief summary of all the major employment law developments in an easy-to-digest format. The goal is to give you the news you need in as few words as humanly possible.

The next Alert will be coming out shortly. Enjoy!

It’s not too late to sign up for today’s 11:00 a.m. CT webinar, entitled What’s New and What’s Next in Employment Law for 2012.

If you fail to attend, your risks of getting sued and/or going to jail increase by approximately 817.49%.

Hope you can join us!

The Department of Labor has published new FLSA and FMLA Fact Sheets, emphasizing that both laws prohibit retaliation against those who file complaints under either law.

Here’s the FLSA sheet and here’s the FMLA sheet.

Retaliation has now become the #1 most common discrimination complaint filed with the EEOC. Please please please never ever retaliate.

(Special thanks to Eric Meyer for bringing this to the Blawg’s attention.)