Conn Maciel Carey LLP (CMC) is honored to announce that the firm has been recognized as one of only three national law firms ranked in Band 1 Nationwide for Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA) Law 
for the 2nd year in a row. CMC remains the only “boutique” firm among the law firms recognized.
The recognition comes from Chambers and Partners, an independent research company that delivers detailed rankings and insight into the world’s leading lawyers and law firms. This is only the second year that Chambers has ranked the OSHA Law field, and CMC has been ranked Band 1 both years.
Chambers’ researchers identified CMC as “perhaps the foremost experts in workplace health and safety law.… CMC is made up of some of the best legal expertise that is available when it comes to safety and health matters…. They are keen to build a good relationship with their clients so that they can anticipate needs and exceed expectations.”
OSHA violations characterized as Repeat or Willful can now carry penalties as high as $156,259 per citation. You may be wondering, however, what exactly leads OSHA to characterize a violation as Repeat or Willful, and why are they important beyond their high-dollar cost? No doubt, you heard that OSHA changed the Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP) in September 2022, making it easier to place employers into the program and saddle them with all the negative consequences associated with it even though the citations which prompted the referral are not yet final orders. Raising the stakes even higher, OSHA announced changes to its “Instance-By-Instance” or “Egregious” enforcement policy in January 2023 that will undoubtedly lead to a significant increase in the number of multi-million-dollar enforcement actions.
Where is your favorite vacation spot?
Cal/OSHA and the California legislature have continued to focus their efforts on extending workplace mandates associated with COVID-19, heat illness and wildfire smoke. This update will cover the transition from Cal/OSHA’s COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard to the Non-Emergency COVID-19 Rule as well as other workplace safety mandates that have been recently adopted or are under consideration.
As we approach the midway point of the Biden Administration, it’s time to look back and take stock of what we learned from and about OSHA during another very eventful year. More importantly, it is once again time to look ahead and discuss what employers should expect from OSHA during Year 3 of the Biden/Harris administration. In this webinar, the Partners in Conn Maciel Carey’s national OSHA Practice Group reviewed OSHA enforcement data and trends as well as changes to the SVEP program and new emphasis programs, rulemaking, and personnel developments from 2022. We also discussed the top OSHA issues employers should monitor and prepare for in the New Year.
