Laura A. Mitchell

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Laura A. Mitchell is a Principal in the Denver, Colorado, office of Jackson Lewis P.C. She is a member of the firm’s Affirmative Action and OFCCP Defense practice group as well as the firm’s Pay Equity Resource Group. She is also on the leadership team for the firm’s Government Contractor Industry Group.

Her practice is focused on representing government and non-government contractors in OFCCP matters, preparing for and defending OFCCP audits, and counseling employers on issues stemming from OFCCP regulations. Ms. Mitchell personally oversees the development of hundreds of AAPs each year and is intimately involved in the defense of numerous OFCCP audits. She also spends significant time counseling companies in connection with conducting pay equity analyses as well as government contractor employment obligations.

Ms. Mitchell is the editor and a principal contributor of The Affirmative Action Law Advisor blog and frequently presents on pay equity, affirmative action compliance, OFCCP enforcement trends, and government contractor obligations.

JD Supra Readers Choice Top Author 2018

Connect: Read more about Laura A. Mitchell
Firm/Organization: Jackson Lewis P.C.
Blogs: Affirmative Action & OFCCP Law Advisor, Disability, Leave & Health Management Blog, Pay Equity Advisor Blog

Latest Articles

In the continually developing story of employee pay data reporting, the Judge who overturned the stay on the EEO-1 reporting obligation has granted the government until April 3 to inform employers as to whether they will be required to report pay data as part of this year’s EEO-1 reporting cycle, which opened Monday, March 18th and runs through May 31 – at least currently. At the request of Plaintiffs, the parties in the case of…
In August 2018, OFCCP released Directive 2018-04 announcing the Agency’s implementation of Section 503 Focused Reviews. Long a priority Director Craig Leen, the Agency is hopeful the reviews will improve compliance with the regulations and promulgate EEO for Individuals with Disabilities. OFCCP has indicated it will start scheduling the Section 503 Focused Reviews with the Agency’s upcoming round of CSALs. When first announced, there were many questions surrounding what information OFCCP would request while…
As Bloomberg Law first reported, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has found the government did not have proper justification to stay implementation of the EEOC’s pay data collection tool.  As a result, the court has vacated the 2017 stay and ordered the previous approval of the revised EEO-1 form shall be in effect. The order was made at the conclusion of the court’s 41-page decision in the case of National Women’s Law Center …
Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (SB 19-085), originally introduced on January 17, received its first hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 20, 2019. Hearings lasted for over four hours and included passionate testimony from members of the civil rights and business communities. After the dust had settled, the Committee adopted a number of employer-friendly changes to the law, including: Adding consideration of shift differential to the definition of…
OFCCP announced Friday that it will post a new Corporate Scheduling Announcement List (CSAL)(formerly known as Corporate Scheduling Announcement Letter or Courtesy Scheduling Announcement Letter) in “mid-to-late March.”  As previously announced, OFCCP now makes the CSAL publically available and, for the first time, OFCCP will send no letters to federal contractors – thus the changed reference to Corporate Scheduling Announcement List instead of “letter”.  Instead, the March 2019 CSAL will appear only in OFCCP’s FOIA Library…
On the eve of St. Valentine’s Day, OFCCP is wanting contractors to feel the love.  In its fourth directive of fiscal year 2019, OFCCP has unveiled a Voluntary Enterprise-wide Review Program, otherwise referred to as VERP.  Directive 2019-04 states VERP enables OFCCP to blend its compliance evaluation and compliance assistance activities to work with high‐performing contractors toward a mutual goal of sustained, enterprise‐wide (corporate‐wide) compliance, outside of OFCCP’s neutral establishment‐based scheduling process. The directive highlights…
Last August we reported on OFCCP’s announcement  (DIR 2018-04) that starting in 2019 it would be conducting truncated “Focused Reviews” that centered on compliance with AAP requirements under Section 503 (Individuals with Disabilities) and VEVRAA (Veterans). If everything goes according to OFCCP’s plan, the next round of CSALs will include notices for these more limited Focused Reviews under Section 503.  In total, OFCCP expects to conduct 500 focused reviews in FY2019.  While Director Leen had…
The EEOC announced on February 1, 2019 that due to the partial government shutdown, the 2018 EEO-1 filing  portal will open “in early March” for filing of 2018 reports.  As a result of the delayed opening, EEOC has extended the filing deadline by two months.  The new deadline by which to file is May 31, 2019. As a refresher, the typical EEO-1 filing deadline was changed to the first quarter of each year (from the third quarter)…
As part of OFCCP’s continuing efforts at transparency, the Agency in late-November 2018 issued a Directive stating it would develop “a dynamic and searchable publically available source of Help Desk questions and answers to assist contractors.”  Moreover, the Directive announced OFCCP would issue Opinion Letters to provide guidance on specific topics, either in response to Help Desk inquiries or in response to direct requests for Opinion Letters.       OFCCP is now actively seeking input…
As OFCCP heads into 2019, with an official Director in place, the Agency is looking towards implement many of its new Directives released in the second half of 2018. Back in September, we discussed OFCCP Directive 2018-09: OFCCP Ombud Service, one of the number of policy changes OFCCP hoped to develop to increase a sense of transparency and impartiality between it and government contractors. On December 21, OFCCP took the first step…