Israel Featured on NPR Marketplace

New York Partner Jonathan Israel was featured in an “NPR Marketplace” story that aired on July 15, 2013 titled, “Unpaid Internships Under Fire.” The story discusses the trouble companies are facing in regards to the issue of whether or not to pay interns. Mr. Israel was quoted as saying, “Even though unpaid internships were once a standard, not all unpaid interns are equally happy. It’s been done for years, and when these cases started dropping, people were just shocked.” Mr. Israel is talking about all those lawsuits where unpaid interns are suing big companies like NBC, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Conde Nast, Hearst Magazines and Charlie Rose. While there are a lot of good internship programs out there, Israel says lawyers have been going after big corporations hoping for big payoffs. “Now the world’s waking up a little bit and saying I’m not sure this is right,” he says. So, he notes, companies have begun to think carefully about working with interns. Mr. Israel was also quoted saying he did an unpaid internship, and it was valuable. “And they are,” he says. “I mean that’s the reality. There is value to the internships, that’s why we’re having the discussion. I would say look, my value to the business during that time period, probably not much. I’m not sure what I added. But to see those things go away because businesses won’t be able to afford the risk of creating that opportunity, I think that’s a shame.”