The Policy was drafted by Professor Robert Stumberg and his students, T. Lloyd Grove and Lindsey Scannell, of the Harrison Institute for Public Law at the Georgetown University Law School. They worked as consultants to the Consortium, with the support of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

The Georgetown advisors started with a previous model policy that had long been promoted by SweatFree Communities, a national coalition of labor rights groups, and reframed its philosophical and legal foundation. Here is a summary from the Findings section of the new model policy: