Every rule on Arbiter HR comes from primary state and federal statutes, gets verified monthly, and is cited per state. Here's how the research and update process works.
Arbiter HR publishes 50-state compliance references for HR and payroll teams. Every rule on this site comes from primary statutes and authoritative state agency guidance — not aggregator content, not secondary summaries, not AI guesses dressed up to look authoritative.
This page explains how we research, verify, and update the rules on this site.
Every state-topic rule on this site originates from one of three source types, in order of preference:
The actual codified law — California Labor Code, New York Labor Law, Texas Labor Code, and so on. We cite the section number on every page that references a state rule. When we say "California requires immediate payment of final wages on the day of termination," that statement traces back to California Labor Code § 201.
State Departments of Labor, Workforce Commissions, and equivalent enforcement bodies often publish employer-facing FAQs and guidance documents. When agency guidance clarifies something the statute leaves ambiguous, we cite the agency source alongside the statute.
When state law is silent, the applicable federal rule (FLSA, FMLA, FCRA, etc.) governs. We note this explicitly rather than assuming the reader knows.
We do not cite secondary sources — law firm blogs, HR newsletters, or aggregator sites. Those are useful for context, but they're not sources. They're commentary on sources.
Each rule on this site is verified through a structured audit process. The process runs every month for every state-topic combination.
Our research system retrieves the current text of the relevant statute and any updated agency guidance. Sources that have moved or changed structure are flagged for manual review.
Each state's rule is classified into a defined tier — for example, final pay timing rules are classified as Critical (same-day required), High (within 24–72 hours or next business day), or Standard (next regular payday acceptable). The classification criteria are published per topic.
Every rule is cited to its source — statute section, agency guidance URL, or federal regulation. The citation appears on every page where the rule is referenced. No rule appears without one.
When a state's rule changes — new legislation passes, an agency revises its guidance, a court decision modifies how a statute is enforced — we update the affected pages and note the change in our monthly update log.
Every change to every rule is logged with the date, the source, and the reasoning. This audit trail is what allows us to publish corrections quickly when laws change and to maintain consistency across 450+ state-topic combinations.
Compliance laws change constantly. State legislatures pass new pay transparency requirements every quarter. Federal agencies revise guidance. Courts issue decisions that modify how statutes are enforced. A reference that was accurate in January can be wrong by April.
Most compliance content on the internet is updated annually, if at all. We update monthly because that matches the actual rate of legal change in this area. Every page on this site shows its last-verified date so you know when the rule was last confirmed against its source.
When you buy an Arbiter HR workbook, you don't just get the current edition — you get every monthly edition for as long as the product exists, delivered automatically. The site reflects the same data, free.
A few things we want to be clear about, because the legal and compliance content space has a lot of noise:
Arbiter HR publishes reference material — not legal advice. Reference material is useful for understanding the legal landscape, preparing questions for your attorney, and making routine compliance decisions where the rule is well-established. It is not a substitute for legal counsel on specific situations. Every page on this site includes this disclaimer for a reason.
Arbiter HR is built by real HR and payroll practitioners — people who have run final pay calculations, processed terminations across multiple states, audited benefits programs, and managed compliance without an in-house legal department. The references on this site are shaped by the work, not by theory.
Every rule on this site traces to a primary source — statute, agency guidance, or federal regulation — with the citation visible on the page. Our monthly audit catches changes the moment they happen. The data stands on its sources, verifiable independently.
What other workbooks would help you? What state-topic rules matter most to you that we haven't built yet? Email us — we read every message and prioritize the catalog based on what multi-state HR teams actually need.