(Post has been updated to note a legislative development.)

Running a restaurant is hard. It’s long hours, short tempers and fickle customers.

But add in those wage & hour laws? What a headache.

And there are lawyers out there who know it. In fact, there are some that rest their business model on

The Connecticut General Assembly is already busy with a full compliment of employment law bills under consideration.  At this point, it seems likely that several will pass in one form or another and thus employers should be playing close attention to the developments.

Here are a few of the Senate ones that I’m watching (

With all the talk about layoffs, separation agreements have moved front-and-center to the discussion on how companies can reduce their liability exposure.

But how much severance should a company offer to its employees when laying them off?

There is, of course, no set rule in Connecticut — or the United States — on how much severance