New York has adopted regulations implementing the state’s paid family-leave law. The regulations outline the mandates on employers and insurance carriers in implementing the paid family-leave program.

The program is mandatory for nearly all private employers — any employer with one additional employee. Public employers may opt into the program.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2018, employers will be required to provide paid family leave, providing employees with wage replacement and job protection to help them “bond” with a child, care for a close relative with a serious health condition, or help “relieve” family pressures when someone is deployed abroad on active military service. 

Employees are also entitled to return to their job when their leave ends and to continued health-insurance coverage during their leave, the office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news release issued July 19. If the workers contribute to the cost of their health insurance, they must continue to pay their portion of the premium cost while on paid family leave.

The regulations address eligibility, coverage, the phase-in schedule for paid family leave, and more information on how employees, employers, and insurance carriers will interact to pay benefits.

“There is a time in everyone’s lives where being there for a loved one in need is more important than anything and, finally, New Yorkers will no longer have to choose between losing their job and being a decent human being,” Cuomo contended in the release. 

The regulations

Paid family leave provides coverage for parents during the first 12 months following the birth, adoption, or fostering of a child.

It also provides coverage for employees caring for a spouse, domestic partner, child, parent, parent-in-law, grandparent, or grandchild with a serious health condition.

And, the program covers employees assisting loved ones when a spouse, child, domestic partner, or parent is deployed abroad on active military duty.

Employee eligibility

Employees with a regular work schedule of 20 or more hours per week are eligible after 26 weeks (or a half year) of employment, Cuomo’s office said.

Those employees with a regular work schedule of less than 20 hours per week are eligible after 175 days worked.

Insurance coverage 

Paid family-leave coverage will typically be included as a rider to an employer’s existing disability-insurance policy, and will be “fully funded” by employees through payroll deductions, the state says.

In 2018, the maximum employee contribution is 0.126 percent of an employee’s weekly wage up to 0.126 percent of the annualized New York State average weekly wage. 

Phase-in

New York will phase-in paid family leave over four years, beginning Jan. 1, 2018. 

In 2018, employees may take up to eight weeks of paid leave at 50 percent of an their average weekly wage — up to 50 percent of the New York State average weekly wage. 

That increases to 12 weeks of paid leave in 2021, paid at 67 percent of an employee’s average weekly wage — up to 67 percent of the New York State average weekly wage.

Employers are not allowed to ask their workers to use any of their sick or vacation days while they are on paid family leave. ν

SYRACUSE — Syracuse law firm Hancock Estabrook, LLP has started a student-loan repayment-assistance program for its younger attorneys. 

“All of our younger attorneys — our associates and junior partners — are eligible to participate in this program,” says Janet Callahan, the firm’s managing partner, noting that it went into effect in May.

Callahan spoke with CNYBJ on July 27.

Under the program, Hancock Estabrook will contribute a monthly amount to qualifying associates and income partners to help them pay back their education debt, the firm said in a news release.

Callahan says associate attorneys are the youngest attorneys in the law firm, while income partners “are like junior partners” in the firm.

She declined to disclose how much Hancock Estabrook will contribute, but described it as a “straight across-the-board figure” that the law firm provides to those eligible. 

“We polled the attorneys who are eligible for the program and what we tried to do is come up with an amount that for the most part would cover their loan payment,” says Callahan.

Those younger attorneys who have worked for the firm for two years are eligible for the benefit, she adds.

About 14 attorneys are already participating in the firm’s student-loan repayment-assistance program, Carrie T. Ryder, marketing director at Hancock Estabrook, tells CNYBJ.

Why offer the program

The purpose of the program is to enhance the firm’s ability to attract and retain talented young lawyers by acknowledging and addressing the “financial challenges” faced by this group, according to the firm’s news release. 

Hancock Estabrook hopes the student-loan repayment-assistance program helps “to ease their financial burden a little bit,” says Callahan.

When they finish law school, attorneys start earning “what seems to be good money” and they should be able to buy a house and start a family, the law firm says. But they also have to set aside a “big” sum of money every month to pay off a student loan. 

“It really interferes with your goals,” notes Callahan.

When asked how long the firm had been thinking about adding this benefit, Callahan said for “the past year.”

“Our executive committee has been looking at different ways to provide benefits for our younger attorneys,” she added. 

The firm views the repayment assistance as another of the benefits it offers its lawyers, which includes programs such as flexible work and parental-leave arrangements.

The Hancock Estabrook news release on the topic also cites a higher-education expert as saying law-school graduates arrive at law firms with an average of $185,000 in student loans. That expert was Mark Kantrowitz, a mathematician, author, and founder of finaid.org, according to Ryder.

The Alexandria, Virginia–based Society for Human Resource Management indicates that only about 3 percent of companies in the U.S. offered to help employees with their loans in 2016.

Hancock Estabrook said it decided to provide eligible attorneys with direct financial support “rather than just offer its employees various options and information on repayment programs.”

Besides its headquarters in Axa Tower I in downtown Syracuse, Hancock Estabrook also operates offices in Ithaca, Rome, and Albany.

The firm employs 107 people, including 52 attorneys, according to Ryder. Hancock Estabrook has 34 partners.