Time and attendance violations involving unpaid internships have recently come into the spotlight. A number of high profile cases have shed light on this issue, including one in which an unpaid intern on the set of Oscar winning film Black Swan alleged he should have been compensated for the time he spent cleaning and making lunch runs.

More recently, an intern for Elite Model Management claimed the company's unpaid internship practices were in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The $50 million lawsuit alleges Elite routinely expects its staff members who work for experience rather than pay to put in more than 40 hours a week, according to The New York Post.

The plaintiff in the case, Dajia Davenport, claims the model management company that represented supermodels such as Tyra Banks, Janice Dickenson, Heidi Klum and Gisele Bundchen, misclassified the interns as exempt on purpose to avoid paying for the work they performed.

There are benefits to unpaid internships - they allow unexperienced, but eager individuals to connect with mentors and get a foot in the door at no expense to companies - but businesses must be careful when designing these programs. If they do not adhere to the FLSA diligently, reports of violations could crop up and cost a lot more than a summer's worth of wages.

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