Mark Hanna Guest Lectures at UVA Law’s Workplace Rights Clinic
Murphy Anderson partner Mark Hanna served as a guest lecturer today for the Workplace Rights Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law. The clinic is an 8-credit experiential course that UVA Law operates in partnership with the Legal Aid Justice Center (LAJC). Students in the clinic work alongside LAJC attorneys to represent low-wage, immigrant, and migrant workers across Virginia in wage claims and other workplace disputes.
Mark taught students about whistleblower and retaliation claims under federal and state law. He explained how retaliation protections run through nearly every workplace statute, from civil rights and wage-and-hour laws to the roughly two dozen whistleblower statutes that OSHA administers. He compared state whistleblower laws, including Virginia’s 2020 statute, and covered bounty programs under the False Claims Act and the SEC, CFTC, and IRS whistleblower programs.
Mark placed these claims within the broader landscape of American labor and employment law. Under the at-will system, employers can fire most workers for any reason or no reason, unless the reason is discriminatory. Retaliation law, he explained, carves out another critical exception to that rule.