What Are Exempt Job Duties
Professional

This exemption includes doctors, lawyers, and teachers. Employees are performing exempt professional job duties if their work involves the application of advanced, usually specialized, learning or credentials of the type commonly associated with the "traditional learned professions" such as medicine, law, accounting or engineering. Typically, but not necessarily, a professionally exempt employee will hold a specialized academic degree in the field, and professionally exempt job duties imply that the employee exercises a good deal of judgment and discretion in performing the work. The FLSA distinguishes the exercise of judgment and discretion from the application of particular skills, even high-level skills. A lumber grader, for example, may be highly trained in distinguishing subtle variations in wood but is not performing professionally exempt job duties.

On the other hand, the professional exemption is not limited to the traditional learned professions. A "real" computer programmer, for example, is performing exempt professional job duties. Of course, to be professionally exempt even a traditionally credentialed employee must actually "practice" the profession for which s/he is qualified. An engineer doing real engineering work is performing professionally exempt job duties, but an engineer working as a technician is not. An accountant doing accounting is performing professionally exempt work, but a CPA whose job is really bookkeeping is not.

The increasing use of computers in business has generated some "special rules" in the FLSA defining "computer professionals." "Real" programmers, systems analysts, and systems engineers are considered to be performing professional job duties. However, employees are not performing professional job duties merely because they may happen to work with computers. Jobs such as computer installation or troubleshooting computer problems are not typically professionally exempt (although employees in these jobs may be exempt as executives or administrators if their actual job duties fit within those definitions). As noted above, computer professionals are exempt if they are paid on a salary basis, or hourly at a rate of at least $27.63.

If you feel that you have been misclassified as an exempt employee and would like to discuss the matter with an attorney, please contact us or fill out our questionnaire and we will call you.