Filing FLSA Collective Actions After Provencher: Plaintiff Forum and Notice Strategy

Scott Moriarity, Founder | Moriarity Law Office PLC

Scott Moriarity litigates complex employment and class action disputes throughout the United States, representing employees against large, well-funded adversaries. Based in downtown Minneapolis at Moriarity Law Office PLC, he brings more than 20 years of experience to tough workplace disputes, including discrimination, harassment, and whistleblower matters, ERISA benefit disputes, and sophisticated transactional work for executives, entrepreneurs, and creatives.

• Education & Credentials

Scott earned his J.D., cum laude, from William Mitchell College of Law, where he served as a Staff Editor and Editorial Board Member of the William Mitchell Law Review, and holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, where he was a Presidential Scholar. He has been licensed to practice in Minnesota since 2002 and is also admitted before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Third, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits.

• Recognition & Leadership

Scott has been selected to Minnesota Super Lawyers each year from 2021 through 2026, including recognition in the Class Action/Mass Torts category, and was named to Minnesota Monthly’s Top Lawyers list in 2023 and 2024. He is a member of The National Trial Lawyers Top 100. He has taught legal seminars on employment agreements, including for the Mitchell Hamline School of Law Alumni CLE Series, authored Making the Best Claim for ERISA Disability Benefits in Minnesota Trial (2019), and regularly mentors newer attorneys on legal writing and advocacy.

• Professional Involvement

Scott is a member of the Federal Bar Association, Minnesota Chapter, the National Employment Lawyers Association, the Minnesota Association for Justice, the State Bar of Minnesota, and the Hennepin County Bar Association. He volunteers with Cancer Legal Care, the League of Women Voters, and In the Heart of the Beast Mask and Puppet Theater.

• Experience

Scott served as a law clerk to Magistrate Judge Jeanne J. Graham of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota from 2005 to 2011 and then practiced as an associate attorney at Lockridge Grindal Nauen from 2011 to 2018. He has since practiced with Baillon Thome and Wanta Thome PLC in Minneapolis before founding Moriarity Law Office PLC. While at Wanta Thome, Scott, together with attorney Nicholas DeMaris, secured conditional certification of a collective action in federal court in Vermont against Bimbo Bakeries USA and its affiliate Bimbo Foods Bakeries Distribution LLC in a misclassification lawsuit.

SESSION 1 – Choosing the Forum for Multi-State FLSA Collectives After Provencher | 12:00pm – 12:30pm

This session examines how the Second Circuit’s May 2026 decision in Provencher v. Bimbo Foods Bakeries Distribution LLC completed a 6-1 circuit supermajority applying Bristol-Myers Squibb’s specific-jurisdiction rule to FLSA collective actions, effectively foreclosing nationwide collectives in most federal forums. Attorneys will learn how to evaluate forum options for multi-state FLSA collectives—including filing in the employer’s home forum, leveraging the First Circuit’s Waters decision, and structuring parallel statespecific collectives. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for forum selection, an understanding of the Rule 23 pivot as a jurisdictional workaround, and awareness of the unresolved Fifth Amendment briefing argument and Supreme Court cert risk.

SESSION 2 – Winning Notice and Preserving Case Value in the Narrowed Collective Landscape | 12:30pm – 1:00pm

This session examines how plaintiffs’ FLSA counsel can secure court-authorized notice and maximize collective size and settlement leverage under the four competing circuit standards now left in place by the Supreme Court’s February 2026 cert denials. Attendees will learn how Bristol-Myers personal jurisdiction constraints, arbitration agreement conflicts, and the Provencher decision reshape notice scope and geographic strategy, and how hybrid Rule 23/FLSA settlement structures can recover case value lost to narrowed collectives. Attorneys will leave with a framework for drafting notice motions, choosing multi-forum filing strategies, and structuring settlements in a landscape where a single filing can no longer reach a nationwide workforce.