FLSA Overtime Security Advisor

Professional Employees

You indicated that:

• The employee's annual compensation is at least $107,432 which includes a weekly guarantee of at least $684 paid on a salary or fee basis;
• The employee's primary duty includes the performance of office or non-manual work;
• The employee customarily and regularly performs one or more duties or responsibilities that are in a recognized field of science or learning and that require advanced knowledge that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction;
• When performing such duties or responsibilities, the employee's work is predominantly intellectual and requires the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment in applying advanced knowledge; and
• The employee does not possess the appropriate academic degree as evidence of the prolonged course of specialized academic instruction.

Generally, the lack of the appropriate academic degree which is recognized as the standard prerequisite for entry into the profession results in the employee not meeting the duties tests for exemption as a learned professional employee.

However, the exemption may be available to employees in such professions who have substantially the same knowledge level and perform substantially the same work as the degreed employees, but who attained the advanced knowledge through a combination of work experience and intellectual instruction. For example, the learned professional exemption is available to the occasional lawyer who has not gone to law school, the occasional chemist who does not possess a degree in chemistry or an accountant who is not a certified public accountant (CPA), who has attained substantially the same level of advanced knowledge and performs substantially the same work in a professional field of science or learning as the degreed professional employees in these occupations.

The principle does not expand the learned professional exemption to new quasi-professional fields; it still requires that all other requirements for the learned professional exemption must be met.

If you have further questions about your situation, you may want to review Fact Sheet #17H:  Highly-Compensated Workers and the Part 541 Exemptions Under the FLSA or contact your local Wage and Hour Division office.

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