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The learned professional employee's primary duty requires knowledge of an advanced type, which is predominantly intellectual in character and requires the consistent exercise of independent discretion and judgment, in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction.  29 C.F.R. §§ 541.300; 541.301.  Eliminated from the professional regulations during recent revisions is that such work be office or nonmanual in nature, as it was not intended, for example, that a surgeon not be exempt from minimum wage and overtime laws due to use of a scalpel in surgery.  With these revisions, the Department of Labor (DOL) clarified that an employee with the same knowledge level, who performs the same work in a professional field of science or learning as a degreed professional, should be classified in the same manner as the degreed professional where such positions, like a lawyer or chemist, have historically allowed for another path of entrance apart from college.  29 C.F.R. § 541.301(d).  Presumably, this would include engineers who attended alternative institutions to universities prior to the proliferation of four- or five-year college engineering programs.  The opportunity, however, to make this exemption argument will be limited as the DOL has clearly indicated in the last few years that it does not intend to expand the learned professional exemption to new "quasi-professional" areas.

The learned professional exemption is also not available for occupations that customarily may be performed with general knowledge acquired by academic degree in any field, with any knowledge acquired through apprenticeship, or by training in the performance of routine mental, manual, mechanical, or physical processes.  29 C.F.R. § 541.301(d).  Likewise, the learned professional exemption will not apply where employees acquire skill by experience and not advanced intellectual instruction.  Id.  In short, a four-year college degree in any field, or a two-year degree from a community college or other institution, will not generally qualify an employee for the learned professional exemption.  Therefore, an organization's identity, or the fact that a "certification" is issued, does not automatically establish that the individual was involved in a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction for purposes of the exemption.  Dental hygienists and noncommercial pilots, for example, do not generally meet the learned professional exemption's requirements.  But see 29 C.F.R. § 541.301(e)(3) (dental hygienists with four academic years of pre-professional and professional study in an accredited college approved by the American Dental Association's Commission on Accreditation of Dental and Dental Auxiliary Educational Programs may meet the requirements of the learned professional exemption).  While medical technologists with very specific educational qualifications after four years of study, including one year of professional coursework approved by the Council of Medical Education of the American Medical Association, may meet the learned professional exemption, many medical technologists will not meet the exemption's requirements.  29 C.F.R. § 541.301(e)(1). 

In sum, an employer who claims the learned professional exemption must be able to demonstrate a high level of specialized educational instruction, typically beyond a general four-year degree or a specific community college program, that is utilized in an intellectual position.