Wage and Hour Litigation: Overtime Claims, Exemptions and Misclassification

Allison D. Balus | Baird Holm

Allison D. Balus primarily represents management clients in federal and state court employment-related litigation and arbitration. Her litigation experience includes federal court jury and bench trials in the FLSA, ADA, Title VII, FMLA, ADEA, breach of contract, and whistleblower cases. She has represented employers in the retail, food processing, health care, manufacturing, marketing, professional staffing, transportation, and fastfood industries, among others. Allison also has considerable experience defending and counseling clients in class and collective actions, particularly those involving claims under the FLSA and other wage and hour laws, the ADA, GINA, the FCRA, the TCPA, and various data privacy claims. Her successes in defending class and collective actions have been at the class certification, summary judgment, trial, and appellate levels.

In addition, Allison counsels and defends public sector clients in education law matters such as due process petitions under the IDEA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Nebraska Special Education Act; due process hearings under Nebraska Revised Statute §§ 79-827 and 79-829; proceedings under the Nebraska Student Discipline Act; and Nebraska Tort Claims Act litigation.

Allison is currently recognized by Benchmark Litigation© as a Labor and Employment Star. Since 2019, Allison has been selected by her peers for inclusion in the Best Lawyers In America® for Labor and Employment Litigation. Allison was also selected as “Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers® in 2022 and 2025 for Omaha Litigation – Labor and Employment. She is included in Great Plains Super Lawyers in the practice area of Employment Litigation. Since 2021, Allison has been named in Chambers USA. In addition, Allison regularly speaks on employment law topics, including recent presentations for the American Bar Association, the Practical Law Institute, the Nebraska State Bar Association, and the Nebraska Council of School Attorneys.

Jennifer A. Riley | Duane Morris

Jennifer A. Riley, Vice Chair of Duane Morris’ Class Action Defense group, has defended companies faced with significant complex litigation matters for more than two decades. Ms. Riley regularly defends companies facing class actions, collective actions, pattern or practice lawsuits, and other types of representative proceedings, ranging in size from dozens to tens of thousands of claims. Working on the forefront of the developing law in an ever-changing arena, Ms. Riley regularly develops strategies for navigating some of the largest challenges faced by corporate America today and counsels employers confronted with a range of complex theories that span from claims of discrimination or sexual harassment to myriad types of alleged wage & hour and statutory privacy violations.

Ms. Riley develops and employs strategies to navigate and to defend complex actions at inception, including strategies to fracture large-scale actions and structure creative solutions. She has represented clients facing bet-the-company cases in a wide range of complex civil litigation matters in federal and state courts across the country. Ms. Riley defended a nationwide restaurant chain against one of the largest class and collective actions ever filed in the Southern District of New York alleging wage & hour violations on behalf of a nationwide collective action and at least a dozen Rule 23 state law classes. Ms. Riley defended multiple international staffing and logistics companies faced with nationwide claims for alleged misclassification and failure to pay overtime to various categories of workers across hundreds of work locations. Ms. Riley defended myriad employers against allegations of nationwide pattern or practice discrimination based on membership in various protected categories challenging their various hiring, promotion, and employment practices.

Ms. Riley has served as trial counsel in federal court bench trials, jury trials and arbitration proceedings. Ms. Riley has defended a multitude of actions by securing dismissal, defeating class or collective action certification, prevailing on summary judgment, and structuring and securing approval of complex and multiparty settlements and consent decrees. She also provides counsel to employers seeking to navigate thorny issues, including investigations, compliance, and terminations.

Ms. Riley is a regular speaker, author, and presenter regarding class action issues, legal developments, and challenges that companies may face in the future. Prior to joining Duane Morris LLP, in addition to her commercial litigation experience at one of the nation’s largest law firms, Ms. Riley was in-house counsel for a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical and medical device company where she investigated, managed, and resolved a wide range of commercial and employment disputes.

Ms. Riley is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley School of Law (J.D., 2000) and Vanderbilt University (B.A., magna cum laude).

Session I – Strategies for Handling Wage and Hour Case | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

• Effective case management techniques
• Discovery and evidence collection
• Settlement negotiations and resolution
• Risk management and compliance

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

Session II – Current Trends in Wage and Hour Disputes | 2:10pm – 3:10pm

• Recent developments
• Class action and collective action trends
• Key issues in overtime claims, exemptions and misclassification
• Certification trends and strategies