In remarks made at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Employment Law and Legislative Conference held recently in Washington, DC, Lester Rosen, an Attorney and the author of ‘The Safe Hiring Manual,’ said every employer has a legal duty to exercise due diligence in hiring and employers that do not perform employment screening risk ending up as defendants in negligent hiring lawsuits, this according to the article ‘No Background Screening? Call Yourself ‘Defendant’’ on HR Daily Advisor. (more…)

Following a recent six-month investigation by Sports Illustrated (SI) and CBS News that ran criminal background checks on nearly 3,000 college football players from the Top 25 ranked teams that revealed that 7 percent – 1 in 14 – of the players checked had criminal records, a blog on BleacherReport.com listed the ‘10 Craziest Arrest Stories of Players in this Draft Class’ that focused on the college football players who have had “run-ins with the law” that will be involved in 2011 National Football League (NFL) Draft that begins April 28, 2011. (more…)

In the wake of a recent story about a woman who sued Match.com over an alleged assault by one of its members and the subsequent decision by the popular online dating service to conduct background checks on potential members, the CEO of Matches That Matter – a social introduction service for Bay Area singles over 40 headquartered in Oakland, CA – has called for the dating industry to adopt background checks as a standard business practice and also applauds Match.com’s choice to perform background checks, according to a press release from Matches That Matter. (more…)

Joining four other U.S. states – Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington – prohibiting the use of credit information by employers, Maryland has enacted new legislation placing restrictions on so-called credit checks by employers that use the credit report or credit history of job applicants or employees for employment decisions. The law, known as the ‘Job Applicant Fairness Act,’ was signed by Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley in April of 2011 and will take effect on October 1, 2011. (more…)

To help employers in the United States better understand background checks done overseas, Attorney Lester Rosen, President of Employment Screening Resources (ESR), a background screening company accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), will present a 60 minute live webinar – ‘Conducting International Background Checks – Best Practices, Trends and Legal Compliance’ – on Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 3:00 pm ET (2:00pm CT, 1:00pm MT, 12:00pm PT). (more…)