Employees who meet the criteria below are bona fide learned professionals under DOL regulations. If any of the questions below are answered in the negative, the employee is not exempt as a learned professional employee unless he or she is “highly compensated.”

• Is the employee paid a salary or on a fee basis a minimum of $684 per week exclusive of board, lodging or other facilities?;
  • Is the employee paid on a salary basis? With certain limited exceptions he or she must:
    • Experience no reduction in salary for variations in the quality and quantity of work;
    • Experience no deduction for partial-day absences;
    • Receive each pay period a pre-determined amount constituting all or part of his her compensation; or
    • Pay deductions are based on the principle of public accountability. 29 C.F.R. § 541.710.
  • Alternatively, is the employee paid on a fee basis?
  • Or, is the employee one of the professionals — physicians, lawyers, teachers and film-making industry employees — exempted from the salary or fee basis test? (If yes, then the minimum salary or fee also does not apply.) 29 C.F.R. § 541.303(d), 29 C.F.R. § 541.304(d).
• Does the employee’s “primary duty” consist of performing work that requires knowledge of an advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction?
  • The primary duty means the principle, main, major or most important duty that the employee performs.
  • The employee must consistently exercise discretion and judgment — i.e., he or she must generally use his or her advanced knowledge to analyze, interpret or make deductions from varying facts or circumstances.
  • The work must be predominately intellectual in character. 29 C.F.R. § 541.300.