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| Independent
Contractor Status 101 |
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The
instructors for this course are Mark E. Hunt and Patrick M. Thomas.
 Mark
Hunt is the partner in charge of King & Ballow's Circulation/Distribution
Section. He received his undergraduate degree from Louisiana State
University, where he graduated with honors, and his law degree from
the University of Tennessee College of Law, with honors.
Mr. Hunt has focused his practice almost exclusively on legal issues
which confront newspaper companies. He has provided consultation and
litigation services to many of the over 300 newspapers King & Ballow
has represented. Over the years, he has dealt with the broad range
of legal problems confronting newspaper publishers and has authored
numerous publications which address those legal issues. He is a frequent
speaker at legal seminars and circulation trade association meetings.
 Patrick Thomas
is a senior associate in the Circulation/Distribution section of King
& Ballow. He graduated from Stanford University and received his law
degree from the Vanderbilt University School of Law. While attending
Vanderbilt, he served on the editorial staff of the Vanderbilt Journal
of Transnational Law. Mr. Thomas is admitted to the bar in Tennessee
and the District Court for the Middle and Eastern Districts of Tennessee.
Mr. Thomas practices in state and federal court in the areas of business
litigation, communications law, employment law, construction law,
tax law, and antitrust. He is the author of numerous articles about
legal issues related to the distribution of newspapers and other publications,
and he has spoken many times on related subjects at publishing industry
seminars and conferences.
Determining whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee
of the company can be difficult. This difficulty arises partly because
courts and legislatures have not settled upon a universally applicable
standard for ascertaining "employee" v. "independent
contractor" status. In fact, individual laws may provide somewhat
divergent criteria for analyzing the issue. This inconsistency is
explainable, at least in part, by the fact that individual laws are
created for specific purposes. A legislature may design the test for
determining a worker's status in a manner that advances the purpose
of a particular law. Thus, as the purposes underlying legislation
differ, the test for determining if a worker is an independent contractor
or an employee likewise may differ. This course analyzes these differences
and poses "employee" v. "independent contractor"
to determine the advantages and disadvantages of both.
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Welcome