On January 1, 2020, California Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5) went into effect, drastically curtailing Californians’ freedom to work on their own terms as freelancers. The law, which was written by the AFL-CIO, presents many freelancers in the state with only two options: find a permanent employer willing to hire you or find a new line of work. Ostensibly designed to help Uber and Lyft drivers, the law has drastically affected millions of workers in the state. Recently, a ballot initiative creating an exception for Uber and Lyft qualified for the November election.
The law doesn’t apply to everyone evenly, though. Among a labyrinthine mishmash of exceptions is one for contracts for “professional services.” This exception applies to 11 different types of services, the majority of which concern speech protected by the First Amendment.
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