My friend is an attorney in California and the firm is now checking up on the attorneys.

Can the firm request that the attorneys be available via cell phone during business hours 7 to 4:00pm?

Can the firm request that the attorney be present in the office for business hours if not in court?

Can the firm call and ask about the whereabouts of the attorney after the attorney worked half a day and leaves the office?

If an attorney does not come into work on a friday, and does not call in sick, is not on vacation, and does not work on Friday but works on Saturday instead, can the firm mark Friday as a sick day?

If an attorney is sick for two days, does not take any sick days, can the firm just mark the days as sick days? Even though the work will be completed by the deadline?

Yes to it all. Despite many people's assumption, an exempt employee is still an employee, subject to all workplace standards and policies the employer mandates. Being exempt does not make the employee unaccountable. If your friend doesn't want to be accountable to anyone else, he should open his own practice. ;)

One clarification, though. When your friend didn't show for work for two days, did he call in? What reason did he give for being absent?

He said he was working from home, which he did, but he did not go into the office, also the work could be verified online.

Is giving an exempt employee set working hours a violation of exempt employee status?

Is giving an exempt employee set working hours a violation of exempt employee status? Not at all. Exempt employees can be made to be available 24 hours a day if the employer chooses to.

If an attorney does not come into work on a friday, and does not call in sick, is not on vacation, and does not work on Friday but works on Saturday instead, can the firm mark Friday as a sick day?

They can only mark a sick day when you are out for injury or illness of yourself or family member.

The real question is can they deduct from any type of PTO account and deduct wages if no PTO time exists. Clearly they can do this if he takes a personal day off on Friday and performs no work on Saturday. Thus, the question is whether an exempt employee can make up work time without his employer's permission. If the employer agreed to it, there is no problem because the employer would not be trying to dock the pay.

Under federal law, I think the answer is that the employer does not have to count the make up time. Under California law, it could be a different result. The salary requirement in California has reference to "full-time work." This is defined as 40 hours in a week. Although there has never been a court case on the subject, I think there is an argument that any work week that is at least 40 hours must be paid at the full-time rate. I think this is also in agreement with several other theories of the salary basis test. I would take this to also mean that if you work 20 hours a day for 2 days, the employer could not then dock your pay for not showing up the next 3 days.

If given a case with the above facts, I would argue for it, but the status of this "full-time" argument is only speculative.