A member of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination created quite a stir—and potential new obligations for Massachusetts employers—when he announced in May that the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act should be viewed as gender neutral, so it might cover men seeking paternity leave.

Q. Is it permissible for an employment application to ask whether an applicant has been convicted of a felony?

Q. Must an employer pay an employee for performing jury duty?

Q. Does Massachusetts law provide for family and medical leave beyond that which is required by the federal FMLA?

A new law enacted by the Massachusetts Legislature this year has increased the risk of companies failing to comply with Massachusetts’ many laws regarding paying employees. At the same time that wage-and-hour litigation is rising nationally, the new law mandates that Massachusetts employers pay triple the damages, or so-called “treble damages,” for all violations ...

Q. Can our company require employees to forfeit their vacation time if they don’t use it within a certain period?

Q. Can we legally ask employees to sign a noncompete agreement during the course of their employment?

Q. One of our employees who recently quit hasn’t returned a company-owned laptop. It’s worth at least $1,000. Can we withhold the value of the computer from his last paycheck?

Q. I know that we must pay overtime to nonexempt employees who work more than 40 hours in a week. But do we owe overtime if a nonexempt employee works more than her scheduled hours, even if that total doesn’t exceed 40 hours?