Sep 2025–Present
Current role
Law and Policy Fellow
Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts
About
Maria Van Buren is a skilled appellate, regulatory, and enforcement attorney with particular expertise in appellate advocacy and client counseling. As a Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of the Solicitor, she assisted her client agency to administer the Fair Labor Standards Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and Occupational Safety and Health Act. She also specialized in strategic planning, assisting her client to conceptualize and execute nationwide enforcement programs, including Wage and Hour’s Child Labor Enforcement Initiative, which employed groundbreaking litigation strategies to address a surge in unlawful child labor across the country.
Roles
Aug 1998–Jun 2025
Former role
Counsel
U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Office of the Solicitor
District of Columbia
Legal
Supervisory attorney providing legal advice and counsel to the Wage and Hour Division and Occupational Safety and Health Administration on litigation, regulatory, and legislative matters pertaining to the administration and enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and Occupational Safety and Health Act. Represented client in audits and investigations initiated by Congressional oversight panels, the DOL Office of Inspector General and U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Responsible for strategic planning and legal defense of nationwide enforcement plans, in particular, the agency’s 2023-2024 Child Labor Initiative and its implementation of the 2018 amendments to the FLSA addressing the compensation of tipped employees. Supervised the legal review of Wage and Hour opinion letters, and amicus curiae and appellate briefs addressing child labor and tipped employees.