The 2026 State Law Compliance Crunch: Pay Transparency, Pay Equity Audits, and the New Non-Compete Patchwork

J. Scott Humphrey, Chair, Trade Secrets, Restrictive Covenants & Unfair Competition Practice Group | Benesch

J. Scott Humphrey chairs Benesch’s Trade Secrets, Restrictive Covenants & Unfair Competition Practice Group in Chicago. His practice focuses on restrictive covenant enforcement, trade secret misappropriation, litigation, arbitration, and counseling. He serves as lead counsel to clients across healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, technology, real estate, and other industries.

• Education & Credentials

Scott earned his J.D. from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law, an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and a B.A. from Wittenberg University, where he was inducted into Order of Omega. He is admitted to the Illinois State Bar; the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the Northern District of Illinois (including its Trial Bar), the Southern District of Illinois, the Eastern District of Wisconsin, and the District of Colorado. He is also Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certified.

• Recognition & Leadership

Scott has been listed by Leading Lawyers in Illinois for Trade Secrets/Unfair Competition Law and Commercial Litigation (2023, 2025–2026), recognized by WIPR as a top trade secret lawyer in the country (2025), named among Chicago Lawyer’s Top Trade Secrets/Unfair Competition Lawyers (2025), and ranked by Lex Machina among the ten most active trade secret litigation lawyers (2024). He has been an IAM Patent 1000 top trade secret lawyer (2023), a Benchmark Litigation Litigation Star (2024–2026), and a Legal 500 ranked lawyer for trade secrets litigation (2017–2020). Chicago Lawyer has also named him among its Top IP, Arts & Sports Lawyers (2023–2026), Top Corporate Lawyers (2024), and Top Commercial Litigation Lawyers (2023), and Crain’s Chicago Business named him a Notable Gen X Leader in Law (2022).

• Professional Involvement

Scott is a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Trade Secret Law Committee and The Sedona Conference Trade Secrets Group, and a Fellow of the Chicago Bar Association College of Trial Lawyers. He regularly speaks on restrictive covenant and trade secret developments, including FTC non-compete regulations, legislative and regulatory changes, and annual legal updates. His recent writing focuses on evolving restrictive covenant and trade secret law.

• Experience

Scott has extensive experience enforcing and defending restrictive covenants and trade secret claims, obtaining and defeating injunctions across multiple jurisdictions. He has represented Fortune 50 and Fortune 100 companies, financial institutions, healthcare and pharmaceutical clients, and senior executives in complex litigation, appeals, FINRA matters, and arbitrations. He has also first-chaired jury trials and arbitrations involving trade secrets, restrictive covenants, and commercial disputes.

Maria Cáceres-Boneau, Partner | K&L Gates

Maria Cáceres-Boneau is a partner in K&L Gates’ New York office whose practice includes wage and hour matters and counseling employers on the laws governing the workplace to mitigate risk. Her published work includes analysis of employer defenses under the Equal Pay Act, and she has presented on wage transparency laws as a challenge facing U.S. employers. She represents companies in the technology, financial services, real estate, retail, fashion, and healthcare industries, litigating employment disputes, drafting agreements and workplace policies, conducting investigations, providing employee trainings, and advising on business acquisitions.

• Education & Credentials

Maria earned her J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, an M.S. from Hunter College, and a B.A. from Yale University. She is admitted to practice in New York and before the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York. She is fluent in Spanish.

• Recognition & Leadership

Maria was recognized by Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America for Litigation – Labor and Employment in New York (2026) and was named to the New York Super Lawyers list (2025) after appearing on the New York Rising Stars list from 2013 through 2019.

• Professional Involvement

Maria has spoken on wage transparency laws, reductions in force, and other challenges facing U.S. employers hiring foreign talent at the Hispanic National Bar Association Corporate Counsel Conference, and on the FTC’s proposed rule on non-competes at Cardozo Law School’s Heyman Center on Corporate Governance. Her writing on Equal Pay Act employer defenses appeared in SHRM, and she has been quoted by Newsday and CNN Money on salary history inquiries in hiring. She serves as a Board Trustee of the Museum of the Moving Image and as a mentor through the Yale University Cross College Mentorship program and Y Tu Tambien.

• Experience

Maria’s wage and hour work sits alongside a broader employment practice that includes discrimination, harassment, wrongful discharge, and breach of contract disputes. She litigates employment disputes for employers, drafts agreements and workplace policies, conducts workplace investigations, delivers employee trainings, and advises on the employment issues in business acquisitions. She has written for the New York Law Journal on employer recovery from employee bad actors and on the legal issues of the post-pandemic remote workplace, and served as Contributing Editor of the RICO and Labor Law chapter of The Developing Labor Law (Bloomberg BNA). Before joining K&L Gates she was a partner at an international law firm.

Carter L. Norfleet, Associate | K&L Gates

Carter L. Norfleet is an associate in K&L Gates’ Labor, Employment, and Workplace Safety practice in Los Angeles. He regularly defends employers in high-stakes wage and hour class actions and single-plaintiff matters in state and federal courts, arbitrations, and administrative proceedings, with substantial experience in Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) claims. He is admitted in California and Colorado and also advises on human resource compliance and the employment issues in business transactions.

• Education & Credentials

Carter earned his J.D., cum laude, from American University Washington College of Law in 2016 and his B.A. from Occidental College in 2012. He is admitted to the State Bar of California and the State Bar of Colorado, and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. District Courts for the Central, Eastern, Northern, and Southern Districts of California and the District of Colorado.

• Recognition & Leadership

Carter has been recognized by Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America in Los Angeles for Labor and Employment Law – Management (2024–2026) and for Litigation – Labor and Employment (2026), and was named by The National Black Lawyers to its Top 40 Under 40 Black Lawyers in California.

• Professional Involvement

Carter was a National Employment Law Council Academy Fellow in 2020. His writing includes an analysis of the implications of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse for employers, published by LexisNexis in 2023.

• Experience

Carter’s practice centers on wage and hour defense, including class actions and PAGA matters, as well as misclassification, joint employer, wrongful termination, discrimination, retaliation, and harassment litigation. He has independently handled matters before the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, the Department of Industrial Relations, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, and the EEOC, as well as Employment Development Department audits and appeals. He negotiates and drafts employment, confidentiality, severance, arbitration, and independent contractor agreements, employee handbooks, and employment policies, conducts employment due diligence in mergers and acquisitions, and advises clients at the intersection of employment law and intellectual property law. He serves clients in the healthcare industry among others.

SESSION 1 – Pay Transparency and Pay Equity in 2026: Posting Requirements, Disclosure Duties, and Litigation-Proofing Compensation Practices | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

With pay transparency statutes now live in more than a dozen states—including recent additions like Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, and Virginia—multistate employers face conflicting posting, disclosure, and reporting rules for a single job ad. This session maps the current patchwork, the enforcement and class action risk it has created, and how to structure compensation ranges, promotion disclosures, and pay equity audits that hold up under scrutiny.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Restrictive Covenants After the FTC Rule’s Collapse: The 2026 State Non-Compete Patchwork and Drafting Agreements That Survive | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

The FTC’s nationwide non-compete ban is gone, but the states have taken over—with outright bans, salary thresholds, healthcare-specific limits, notice requirements, and outlier statutes like Florida’s employer-friendly CHOICE Act creating a fifty-state maze. This session covers where non-competes stand in 2026, the new laws taking effect this year, and how to draft, enforce, and litigate restrictive covenants across conflicting regimes.