U.S. Department of Labor
FLSA Overtime Security Advisor
Professional Employees
The learned professional exemption is limited to employees in professions where specialized academic training is a standard prerequisite for entry into the profession. Such professions require the employee to apply advanced knowledge that is customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction, which is ordinarily evidenced by an appropriate academic degree. For example, the standard academic prerequisite for entrance into the field of medicine as a doctor is at least a Doctor of Medicine (MD) or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) degree.
Employees in occupations that customarily may be performed with only the general knowledge acquired by an academic degree in any field, with knowledge acquired through an apprenticeship or with training in the performance of routine mental, manual, mechanical or physical processes do not meet the educational requirements for exemption as a learned professional. The learned professional exemption also does not apply to occupations in which most employees have acquired their skill by experience rather than by specialized intellectual instruction.
Is specialized intellectual instruction and academic training a standard prerequisite for entry into the particular field in which the employee works?
