Treaty Oak Employers’ Law Blog

Why do I insist on confidentiality between interviews? Because it can be really destructive to the culture of an organization if there is complete transparency about everything that happens in an investigation to all people. Let me break that down a little bit. Obviously, when I’m doing a workplace investigation,

What do you do if somebody asks you about the investigative report? This comes up a lot, actually. Sometimes that happens during the interview, or sometimes somebody will ask you after the interview if there will be an investigative report or if they can have it. If somebody asks you

What do you do if there’s a crime committed? As the investigator, we are not very often going to also be legal counsel to the client with the issue. So, again, probably if you’re investigating a workplace situation, you are not a criminal investigator, and you need to be handing

What do you do if your client ignores your investigative findings? Let’s say for example, you determine that a manager discriminated against people. And in response, the client promotes that discriminator. Instead of firing the manager, they promote them. So they disregarded your investigative findings. You, as an investigator, have

What do you do if a client wants you to alter your investigative findings? I’m sad to say that this has come up. And this is sad, right? This is a lack of ethics. They hired you to be a neutral, independent third-party investigator. And then they try to control

What do you do if you don’t think your client contact is taking your investigation, or your investigative results very seriously? It’s incredibly frustrating when somebody makes a bad decision with your investigation. It is also frustrating when they make no decision with your investigative results. But, at the end

What do you do if your client contact has already told you what your investigative outcome should be? This happens an awful lot. It is rare that a client is thoughtful and experienced enough to truly download a situation without expressing their opinion on the outcome.  It is just human

What do you do if you get evidence that can be used in litigation? Basically, everything you’re doing could be used litigation. So, this certainly applies to everything. Your report, your interviews, your notes, your communications with your client. You need to assume everything can be used in litigation. But,

What do you do to maintain Goodwill and a positive opinion of your firm with a client after you’ve made an adversarial finding? That’s a hard one. Hopefully, you have a good relationship with your client contact and hopefully, your client contact is a decision-maker. And within that relationship that