Debate: Should the Government Lessen Its Role in Regulating the Employer-Employee Relationship?

Featuring:

• Richard Epstein, Tisch Professor of Law, NYU School of Law 
• Stephen G. Console, Partner, Console Mattiacci Law  

Cost:

Students- Free

Members (online)- $10

Non-Members (online)- $15

There will be a $5 surcharge to purchase tickets at the door.

 

RSVP: Please RSVP at the link provided. 

Drinks & light snacks will begin at 5PM, followed by the debate at 5:45PM.

One hour of Pennsylvania substantive CLE credit is available. 

 

Join the Philadelphia Chapter of the Federalist Society for a debate between Professor Richard A. Epstein and Stephen Console, Esq., on whether government should reduce its role in regulating the employer-employee relationship. Professor Epstein will argue for a reduction in such regulation; Mr. Console will argue against that reduction. 

Professor Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. Prior to joining the faculty, he was a visiting law professor at NYU from 2007 through 2009. He has served as the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution since 2000. Professor Epstein will argue that the regulatory trend from at-will to a for-cause dismissal standard has been a mistake, and that the increased vitality of labor markets in the Trump years is spurred on largely by high level decisions to tamp down on enforcement of existing laws, and a refusal to enact new laws or regulations. 

Stephen A. Console is the founding and managing partner of Console Mattiaci Law. In 36 years of practice, Mr. Console has been at the forefront of both the fight for, and expanding, the rights of employees who are the victims of abuse of power by their employers and who have had their civil rights violated. 

Mr. Console will argue that the concept of at-will employment is basically that the employer does whatever it wants to do with its worker- be it for good reason, no reason or bad reason. Eventually, the pure at-will doctrine collided with concepts of equality, which led to civil rights laws being enacted. Corporations, however, routinely violate these laws and have gotten more dismissive of them in the last decade. So, the question is: do we want these laws to exist (and be enforced) or not? In other words, are we OK with the idea that certain employees will be discriminated against based on traits they cannot control. If the answer is no, the only way to stop the corporate misconduct is through the passing and enforcing of laws- the primary role of any government.