Washington DC Employment Lawyers

Here’s a general look at some of the main protections for employees in the District of Columbia. This is just an overview, and you should talk with an attorney about your specific situation if you think that your employer might have violated your legal rights.

Sometimes an employee suspects that their employer hasn’t properly paid them. The District of Columbia has a minimum wage law. As of early 2025, the minimum wage for most regular employees is $17.50 per hour, but it changes each July based on increases in the consumer price index. There’s a reduced minimum wage for tipped employees, which is $10 per hour as of early 2025, but it will increase to $12 in July 2025 and $14 in July 2026 before being phased out entirely in July 2027. (An employer can pay this lower minimum wage to a tipped employee only if their tips make up the difference with the standard minimum wage.)

All employers other than the federal government must comply with the minimum wage laws. An employee generally is entitled to the minimum wage for all hours worked for an employer if the employee regularly spends more than half of their working time in Washington, D.C., or if their employment is based in the District and they regularly spend a substantial amount of their working time there, while not spending more than half of their working time in a particular state. In addition, an employee generally must be paid the minimum wage for each hour worked in Washington, D.C. when they perform at least two hours of work there for the same employer in one workweek.

Washington, D.C. also has an overtime law that requires an employer to pay one and a half times the regular hourly pay for every hour that an employee works over 40 hours in a week. Certain types of employees are exempt from the minimum wage law, other types are exempt from the overtime law, and still other types are exempt from both. For example, executive, administrative, and professional employees are not covered by either law.

Time that counts as hours worked under the Washington, D.C. wage laws may extend beyond the time that an employee spends actively performing job tasks at their workplace. Some other forms of compensable time include:

• On-duty time or time that an employer requires an employee to spend at a specified location
• Required training activities
• Traveling for the employer’s business, although not the normal commute
• Cleaning up a work station after a shift

In addition to the D.C. law, employees are generally protected by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. However, the minimum wage under this law is just $7.25 per hour, which is much less generous, and the overtime provisions are essentially parallel. Neither D.C. nor federal law requires meal breaks. The Office of Wage-Hour Compliance in the District of Columbia Department of Employment Services enforces the D.C. minimum wage and overtime laws, while the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor enforces the FLSA.

Employees in Washington, D.C. are shielded from discrimination on the job based on a wide range of protected characteristics. Under the D.C. Human Rights Act, these include age (18 or older), color, credit information, disability, family responsibilities, gender identity and expression, genetic information, homeless status, marital status, matriculation, national origin, personal appearance, political affiliation, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and status as a victim or family member of a victim of domestic violence, a sexual offense, or stalking. This makes it one of the broadest anti-discrimination laws in the country. The District of Columbia Office of Human Rights enforces this law. You have one year to file a complaint after an incident of discrimination.

Many D.C. employees also have protections under federal anti-discrimination laws. One of these is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), and national origin. Other key laws include the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act. Title VII and the ADA cover employers with 15 or more employees, while the ADEA covers employers with 20 or more employees. The ADEA only applies to age discrimination affecting people who are 40 or older, which makes it narrower than the age discrimination provision in the D.C. Human Rights Act. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces federal anti-discrimination laws.

It’s important to keep in mind that discrimination can take many forms, some more subtle than others. If you lose your job, miss out on a promotion, get paid less, or don’t get hired because of a protected trait, that’s certainly discrimination. But discrimination also includes providing less favorable job assignments, withholding benefits or training opportunities, and harassment that reaches a certain level. In some cases, you might even have a claim if a policy or practice that looks neutral on its face has a disproportionate effect on people with your protected trait.

Employment discrimination laws prohibit two main forms of sexual harassment. Quid pro quo (“this for that”) harassment occurs when a supervisor or someone else with authority over the employee requires them to submit to sexual demands to avoid a negative employment action, or offers a job benefit in exchange for their submission. In other words, if you ask your boss for a raise, and he says that he’ll give it to you only if you start dating him, this would be quid pro quo sexual harassment. It’s illegal regardless of whether you submit to the demand.

The other main form of sexual harassment is known as a hostile work environment. This means that the harassing behavior has created working conditions that would be offensive or hostile to a reasonable person in the employee’s situation. Under federal law, harassment must be either severe or pervasive to create a hostile work environment. This means that you could bring a claim after one extreme incident, or after a pattern of many smaller episodes. Under the D.C. Human Rights Act, though, you don’t need to meet a “severe or pervasive” requirement. A court will look at the “totality of the circumstances” in reviewing this type of claim.

Sometimes an employee needs to take time off from work to deal with their medical needs or those of a family member. Washington, D.C. has multiple laws in this area. First, there’s a paid sick leave law that provides different amounts of this leave depending on the size of your employer. Here are the basic rules:

• Businesses with 1-24 employees: accrued at a rate of one hour per 87 hours worked, up to 3 days per year
• Businesses with 25-99 employees: accrued at a rate of one hour per 43 hours worked, up to 5 days per year
• Businesses with 100 or more employees: accrued at a rate of one hour per 37 hours worked, up to 7 days per year

Tipped employees are subject to the same rules as employees of businesses with 25-99 employees. You can carry over accrued paid sick leave from one year to the next, but you can’t use more leave in a calendar year than the maximum number of hours that you’re allowed to accrue each year. You can use this leave for your own medical condition, caring for a qualifying family member with a medical condition, or certain reasons related to stalking, domestic violence, or sexual abuse that has affected a family member or you. The Office of Wage-Hour Compliance enforces this law.

In addition, the District of Columbia Family and Medical Leave Act applies to employers with 20 or more employees. It provides covered employees with 16 weeks of unpaid family leave and 16 weeks of unpaid medical leave in a 24-month period. An employee can use this leave if they have been employed by the employer for at least one year without interruption, and they’ve worked for at least 1,000 hours during the 12 months before taking the leave. Qualifying reasons for this leave include recovering from a serious illness that prevents an employee from working, as well as caring for a seriously ill family member or experiencing the birth of a child, adopting a child, or caring for a child in foster care. The Office of Human Rights enforces the Family and Medical Leave Act.

The District also has a paid family leave law. This provides the following amounts of leave in a 52-week period to covered employees:

• 12 weeks for the employee’s serious health condition
• 12 weeks to care for a qualifying family member with a serious health condition
• 12 weeks for bonding with a new child
• 2 weeks of prenatal leave (although you can’t get more than 12 combined weeks of prenatal leave and leave for your own health condition)

You generally need to spend a majority of your time working in Washington, D.C. to be covered by the paid family leave law. Your employer can’t retaliate against you for taking this leave. An employee who is eligible for paid family leave may receive a weekly benefit amount based on their wages.

Many Washington, D.C. employees are also covered by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which is enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor. To be eligible for FMLA leave, you must have worked for 12 months for a covered employer and have worked for at least 1,250 hours for that employer in the 12-month period before taking leave. In addition, your employer must have at least 50 employees within 75 miles of the place where you work. The FMLA provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period for reasons such as:

• A serious medical condition that prevents you from working
• Caring for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition
• The birth, adoption, or foster care placement of a child
• Certain exigencies related to the foreign deployment of a qualifying family member in the armed forces

You can also take 26 weeks of “military caregiver leave” in a 12-month period. This allows you to care for a qualifying family member who is currently in the armed forces or a recent veteran and who is dealing with a serious injury or illness.

Like almost all states across the U.S., the District of Columbia follows a rule called at-will employment. This means that an employer generally can fire an employee for any reason, or for no particular reason, while the employee also can quit without having a particular reason. However, there are certain exceptions to bear in mind. As mentioned above, a business can’t fire an employee because they have a trait protected by the D.C. Human Rights Act or federal anti-discrimination laws. They also can’t fire an employee in retaliation for filing a good-faith complaint of discrimination in the workplace, or for helping an investigation of alleged discrimination. Some other exceptions to at-will employment include firing an employee in retaliation for blowing the whistle on illegal conduct by an employer or a coworker, or for refusing to do something illegal.

Some employment contracts provide that an employee can’t be fired without cause, or for reasons other than those described in the contract. A wrongful termination claim can arise when a business fires an employee without having one of these reasons. In some cases, written or oral assurances by an employer can amount to an “implied contract” that prevents an employee from getting fired unless certain conditions are present or certain procedures are followed. These cases tend to be tricky, and you should strongly consider working with an attorney if you think you might have this type of claim.

An employee who gets injured on the job in the District likely can get workers’ compensation benefits, regardless of fault. The tradeoff is that they can’t bring a personal injury lawsuit against their employer, although they could sue a third party that was at least partly responsible under the law for their injuries. The Office of Workers’ Compensation in the D.C. Department of Employment Services oversees claims for these benefits. An injured worker must report their injury in writing to this agency within 30 days after it happens, or after they become aware of the relationship between their job and the injury. They have one year after the injury to file a claim application, using Form 7A.

Workers’ compensation provides full reimbursement for necessary medical care, as well as partial replacement for lost wages if you’re unable to work for more than three days. For example, if you have a temporary total disability, you’ll receive two-thirds of your average weekly wage while the disability lasts. You also may be entitled to vocational rehabilitation services through the workers’ comp program. (However, you won’t be able to get non-economic damages like pain and suffering, as you would in a personal injury lawsuit.) An employer can’t fire or otherwise mistreat an employee for filing a workers’ comp claim.

If you suddenly lost your job, you might be anxious about the financial impact while you look for more work. Fortunately, the Office of Unemployment Compensation in the Department of Employment Services manages an unemployment insurance program. To get these benefits, you must have earned at least a certain amount of wages, and you must be unemployed through no fault of your own. You also must be able and available to work, and you must actively look for work.

There’s a one-week waiting period before you can start receiving benefits. Unemployment insurance is available for up to 26 weeks, and the maximum weekly benefit amount is $444 as of 2025. Each week, you’ll need to certify that you’re able to continue receiving benefits. You must report all earnings from work on your weekly claim. If you disagree with a decision about your benefits, you can file an appeal with the Office of Administrative Hearings, which is a separate agency outside the Department of Employment Services. There’s generally a 15-day deadline for an appeal, although there are some exceptions.

The federal government employs many people in the District of Columbia. Here’s a selection of major private employers according to data from the Department of Employment Services:

• Georgetown University
• Washington Hospital Center
• Universal Protection Service
• Booz Allen Hamilton
• Monumental Sports
• Deloitte Consulting
• Whole Foods
• Washington Post
• Safeway
• Marriott

Each of these entities employed at least 1,000 people in the District of Columbia in 2024, as did dozens of others listed by the Department. No matter how large or small your employer may be, though, you shouldn’t hesitate to push back when your workplace rights are infringed.

If you suspect that your employer isn’t following the law, you may want to report them to the appropriate government agency, or at least get more information about your rights. Here are the District of Columbia and federal agencies that enforce many of the key laws:

• D.C. minimum wage and overtime laws: Office of Wage-Hour Compliance, D.C. Department of Employment Services
• Federal Fair Labor Standards Act: Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor
• D.C. employment discrimination laws: D.C. Office of Human Rights
• Federal employment discrimination laws: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• D.C. paid sick leave law: Office of Wage-Hour Compliance, D.C. Department of Employment Services
• D.C. family and medical leave law: D.C. Office of Human Rights
• Federal Family and Medical Leave Act: Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor

The Office of Workers’ Compensation in the D.C. Department of Employment Services manages the workers’ compensation program, while the Office of Unemployment Compensation in the same agency oversees the unemployment benefits program.

For a general overview of some common disputes in the workplace, you can consult the Employment Law Center in the Justia Legal Guides. To get insights on a specific issue involving your job, meanwhile, you may want to post a question on our Justia Ask A Lawyer platform. This might allow you to get a helpful perspective from an employment lawyer in Washington, D.C. Be aware that neither Justia nor any attorney who answers your question has an attorney-client relationship with you or any of the duties that this relationship involves.

Once you’ve decided that you’re ready to work with a lawyer of your own, you can explore this page in the Justia Lawyer Directory. It offers numerous listings of attorneys who handle employment matters in the District of Columbia. You should try to assemble a group of options who look promising to you.

Legal concerns in the workplace can be frustrating and disturbing. They also tend to have high stakes. How a dispute gets resolved may have substantial consequences for both your finances and your professional life. As a result, consulting a lawyer can be crucial to protect your interests and ensure that every aspect of your case is properly evaluated.

An attorney understands the complex network of D.C. and federal laws governing the relationship between your employer and you. They also have a firm grasp of the agency regulations and court precedents that shape how these laws are applied. With this knowledge and their experience and training, lawyers can often build more persuasive arguments than you might craft on your own. On top of that, they know exactly what evidence is needed to strengthen your case. They also can manage the procedural complexities so that you avoid additional stress.

In many situations, employment disputes are settled out of court, although some do proceed to trial. If you receive a settlement offer, your lawyer can analyze its pros and cons to help you decide whether taking the offer is a wise choice. If you opt for trial instead, your attorney probably will be more at ease than you would be presenting your case to a judge or jury.

Occasionally, a trusted friend, family member, or colleague can provide a lawyer recommendation. However, people often look online when they need legal help with a workplace dispute. The Justia Lawyer Directory simplifies this search by offering tools to compare attorneys and assess their strengths. Since this is a major choice, give yourself time to think it through.

When selecting an employment attorney, prior experience is essential. You want someone with a solid record in cases similar to yours. For instance, if your employer failed to accommodate your pregnancy, you need a lawyer who has tackled pregnancy discrimination cases. Meanwhile, if you believe you didn’t get properly paid for overtime work, you should focus your search on lawyers who handle wage and hour claims.

Before you go too far, check whether any potential lawyer has a history of breaking D.C. Bar regulations. A minor slip isn’t always a deal-breaker, but if they repeatedly flout ethical rules, that’s a red flag. They might make major mistakes or fail to treat you properly.

Many firms showcase their best achievements on their websites. You should also read reviews from former clients and fellow attorneys, when available. For example, client reviews can give you some insights into how well an attorney communicates and how attentive they are to each client. If their peers hold them in high regard, meanwhile, that often works in your favor during settlement negotiations or at trial.

Ultimately, consider meeting with several lawyers who catch your attention. Discuss your situation, ask questions, and see if you feel comfortable trusting them with your claim. They should be knowledgeable and empathetic. A good rapport between your attorney and you is vital for a productive relationship.

1. Am I entitled to severance pay under D.C. law?

   The District of Columbia doesn’t universally require employers to offer severance pay. Any severance obligations typically come from contract terms, company policy, or a collective bargaining agreement. You should review these documents and potentially consult a lawyer if they’re unclear.

2. Can a man bring a sexual harassment case?

   Yes. While people often think of a man sexually harassing a woman, a man can bring this type of claim if they were sexually harassed by a woman or by another man. The gender and sexual orientation of each party are irrelevant.

3. Who enforces workplace safety laws, and what should I do about a concern?

   Workplace safety is primarily enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). D.C. employees also may have local protections through the Department of Employment Services. If you feel unsafe at work, first notify your employer or the relevant safety officer (if applicable) and document the issues. If the employer fails to correct the hazard, you can file a confidential complaint with OSHA. Federal law also protects employees from retaliation for reporting unsafe working conditions.

4. How do I know if I am correctly classified as an independent contractor or an employee?

   Worker classification in D.C. largely follows federal guidelines, such as those set by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Department of Labor. Factors include the level of control the employer has over the worker, financial arrangements, and whether the work is integral to the employer’s business. Misclassification can affect wage and hour protections, tax liability, and eligibility for benefits. If you suspect misclassification, consult an attorney or contact the D.C. Department of Employment Services.

5. How much will I need to pay my employment lawyer?

   The fee for an employment lawyer may depend on how much time they spend on a case, since these attorneys often represent clients for hourly fees. Complex and protracted cases thus might result in higher fees. Some lawyers handle employment disputes for a contingency fee, though, which means that they don’t get paid unless they get compensation for the client. The fee would be a percentage of the settlement or verdict. In limited cases, you might find an attorney who is willing to do a particular routine task for a flat fee. This means that you’ll know exactly what you’ll need to pay from the outset.