Objective:

This final project should enable students to apply the employment law concepts learned in this course in a realistic employment context. You will utilize the topics discussed in class including the employment relationship, employment at will, the hiring process, performance improvement plans (PIP's), terminations, severance agreements, employment discrimination (ADA, ADEA, Title VII), Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and more to formulate the first draft of a comprehensive Employment Handbook.

Assignment:

You are preparing the first version of an Employment Handbook (for the pretend Company of your choice) that will be reviewed by the Company's outside employment law counsel and, as such, it should be in near-final format. The goal is for the Employment Handbook to be so substantially complete that the Company's outside counsel will have to spend very little time (and more importantly, Company money) on revising it.

However, as you have learned as an M.L.S./M.Jur. student at Texas A&M School of Law, there will be categories that are critically necessary for outside counsel to review for compliance with various federal and state laws. This is why you will turn in an "annotated" draft as your final project. Since it will be sent to outside counsel for review, you must include comments, questions, and other notations to the outside counsel to highlight what you believe is critical for review and questions you need to be answered. You may also wish to note to outside counsel your thoughts on certain provisions and why you included them or drafted them the way that you did. This can be done using comment bubbles or footnotes. Outside counsel will be very interested in your specific thought processes and questions, so this is a critical component of your assignment.

You will create the completed handbook with all of the categories we discussed in our lesson on handbooks (and potentially more based on the industry you choose). You need to critically think about the industry you have chosen and what additional provisions might need to be included in your handbook. For example, are there any specific safety considerations for your particular Company? What dress code, if any, might apply to your Company?

Use of Outside Sources: You will undoubtedly be using outside sources for this project. Please identify any sources from which you adopt provisions, even if you modify the language. For example, if you review three examples on overtime provisions to create overtime policy, please provide the examples that were used. This can be done in footnotes, or as an endnote to the document.