Employers Blog

What do I do if there is so much going on in an investigation that facts are getting jumbled in my head?  I'm above average intelligence, or else I wouldn't be an attorney. I'm sure you are, too. But there are things and situations that are too big and too much and too many details for one brain to handle. It happens all the time in all kinds of investigations.

What do you do with an investigation about the way somebody is eating? So again, another tricky one. Obviously, we're going to collect our information from our reporting party and see what it is about this eating that's bothering them. And then also, why do they think that person is doing that? Probably going to ask the reporting party some questions about, "Why is this bothering you?" as well. Because we want to always be super, super careful about victim blaming and blaming the person bringing the complaint for being the aggressor.

What do you do when there are no witnesses or when there's he said, she said? That's hard. Parts of that you may or may not be able to determine. It's just the nature of there not being any evidence. And so it often comes down to both credibility and consistent behaviors in the workplace.

What do you do when the client tries to control your investigation? You needed to remind the client that the money they're spending is related to a neutral, independent, third-party investigation. That being said, some people are just micromanagers by nature, and that may include your client representative. And so it can be hard.

What do I do with an accused individual? What do I tell them? The accused is always the last interview I do, unless there's some weird logistical thing going on. But I tell them that they are the accused individual. And generally, they've been notified somewhere along the way that this is happening, and that they're the one being accused, so it's rarely a shock.

What if you need to do an investigation into somebody talking over other people? So, probably in a meeting, if somebody's talking over people, if that's our complaint, like anything, we've got to start by defining it. So, do they talk over all people? Do they talk over people all the time? Is it only when they're upset? Is it only when it's about a certain topic, some triggering event?

I think the biggest thing you do is to stay in your lane. Many investigations are done by people with mental health backgrounds. And if they have a slightly different lane than I do as an attorney, that seems appropriate. But at the end of the day, I'm also human, and I have that lane as well.