Podcast
Littler Lounge: A New Year, a Familiar Fight – Collective Actions Back in the Spotlight
New year, same Lounge – and we’re kicking off 2026 with a topic that proves procedural questions can have surprisingly big consequences.
Hosts Claire Deason and Nicole LeFave welcome Rich Black and Josh Waxman as the first guests of the year for a conversation that starts with a Supreme Court update and quickly turns into a guided tour of how collective actions actually get off the ground. From the different ways courts approach notice in FLSA, ADEA and EPA cases to how early decisions can put pressure on employers to settle, the discussion looks at how procedural details can shape the life of a case.
Rich and Josh also share what it was like to help prepare an amicus brief on the issue, what employers are seeing across different jurisdictions, and how procedural rules can look dramatically different once you cross a circuit line. It’s a timely conversation for anyone keeping an eye on collective actions – especially the early decisions that tend to set the tone for everything that follows.
