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Alison M. Langlais

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Ali Langlais is an Associate in the Labor & Employment Law Department and a member of the Accessibility & Accommodations Group, resident in the Boston office. Her practice focuses on the representation and counseling of employers in all areas of employment and labor relations in a variety of industries, including retail, financial services, publishing, consumer products, telecommunications and sports. As a part of her litigation practice, Ali represents clients in state and federal court and in administrative proceedings involving claims of unlawful discrimination, harassment, retaliation, breach of contract and tort liability. She also has experience defending clients against wage-and-hour collective and class actions. In addition, Ali advises clients with respect to a variety of employment matters, including personnel problems, employment policies and handbooks, and employee training on harassment prevention and other employment-related issues.
A member of the firm's Pro Bono Committee, Ali received the Proskauer Rose Golden Gavel Award in 2009 for outstanding pro bono service. She focuses her pro bono efforts on victims of domestic violence by providing assistance in filing immigration petitions under the Violence Against Women Act, and through the firm's 209A initiative in collaboration with the Middlesex District Attorney's Office. She also represents children with special needs in obtaining entitled services and serves as pro bono counsel for a local animal shelter.
While in law school, Ali was a judicial intern for the Honorable Joyce London Alexander, United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Massachusetts. In addition, Ali interned at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts.

It is essential that all public charities understand the basic rules surrounding their exemption. Indeed, achieving tax-exempt status is only half the battle – once an organization has established that it is tax-exempt, it must set up the proper checks to ensure that it meets ongoing compliance obligations. Plainly, certain activities can jeopardize an organization’s tax-exempt status or subject it to penalties. Because the IRS revised its Compliance Guide for Public Charities and we are in such a highly regulatory environment, we thought it would be helpful to discuss some of the basic rules surrounding tax exemption.
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The goal of the revision of the IRS Form 990 is to increase transparency, encourage compliance, and emphasize the importance of ethics within a not-for-profit organization. Given that so much emphasis has now been placed on “good” governance, it is increasingly important for not-for-profit boards to draft, adopt, and implement relevant governance policies – meant to be “living” documents reflecting the organization itself, and changing as an organization grows and develops.
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