Agrowing number of states and municipalities are restricting the types of inquiries employers can make during hiring, creating concerns with what employers can include or must include on job applications and job postings.
This rising trend comes as respondents to Ogletree Deakins' recent survey report, Strategies and Benchmarks for the Workplace: Ogletree's Survey of Key Decision-Makers, indicated that multi-jurisdictional compliance is one of the three most challenging issues for employers in this current competitive hiring and retention climate.
Colorado, Maine, and Des Moines, Iowa, are the latest examples of jurisdictions that have passed Ban the Box laws on the books that prohibit employers from asking about an applicant's criminal history at the application stage of the hiring process. Across the United States, a total of 15 states, the District of Columbia, and more than 20 municipalities currently have enacted such laws.
Ban the Box laws are intended to provide applicants with criminal records an opportunity to progress further into the hiring process on their merits, rather than being screened out because of their criminal histories. Most of these laws do allow employers to inquire about criminal histories at some point in the hiring process but the jurisdictions vary on when that point it. Des Moines, for instance, does not allow an employer to inquire into an indivdiaul's criminal history until after extending a conditional offer of...
On Sept. 18, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice announced updates to Justice Manual provisions governing False Claims Act (FCA) litigation. The updates (1) limit the use of nonbinding agency gui...