Workplace complaints, grievances, and litigation are exploding during the Covid-19 crisis; a trend expected to continue for years. This, on the heels of increased discrimination complaints during the age of #MeToo and even complaints of harassment related to our fractured political environment. Demand for thorough, impartial, and defensible workplace investigations has never been higher.
LRI has conducted ad-hoc workplace investigations for clients and law firms on behalf of their clients for years. But we believe this new environment demands a more structured approach. That’s why we are announcing today the launch of our own workplace investigations team.
Our workplace investigators stand ready to engage with clients or law firms who want to deploy expert and impartial investigators to conduct a thorough investigation of the most sensitive labor and employment situations. Our team are all attorney consultants with deep HR and investigations experience. Each has been thoroughly vetted and has the strong reputation you expect from any LRI consultant. You and your client can be certain that the investigation will be thorough, complete and fully defensible.
Why not just use your in-house HR staff or outside employment law counsel to conduct your investigation? In a lot of investigations that’s exactly the right move. But in certain higher-stakes situations it makes a lot of sense to have someone independent of both your company employees and your outside law firm to conduct the investigation. Here are six key factors to consider:
- Competing Priorities: During this crazy pandemic your HR team already has plenty on their plate. Deploying them on a time-sensitive and high-stakes investigation means they are diverted from other priorities or, worse, don’t do a prompt, thorough, objective investigation. That can turn a molehill issue into a mountain of grief and expense.
- Get to the Truth, Fast (and Get a Good Night’s Sleep!): Your HR team and attorneys already have relationships with key managers and stakeholders. It is often hard to have confidence that an investigator can stay truly objective if they are asked to investigate conduct of a colleague. It also appears unfair even if the investigation is perfect. These are the perfect circumstances for an outside investigator.
- Keep Your Lawyer: In some cases an attorney who becomes a fact witness to a claim can be conflicted out of representation in that case. An outside investigation can shield your lawyer from being called as a witness about the investigation, giving you confidence that your counsel will be there when you need them most.
- Public Relations Issues: If your investigation is over an issue that could spill into a public relations (PR) problem, your engagement of an independent, outside investigator shows to the world that you are seeking the unvarnished truth about the situation. An unreliable investigation creates legal and PR disasters that cost money, reputation, and company value.
- Lock in a Great Witness: A thorough investigation by an outside expert not only helps your case, but ensures you have a great, objective expert witness at trial.
- Get a Favorable Settlement: Plaintiff’s lawyers bank on a bad investigation when they evaluate cases for trial. Investigation by an expert? They’re much less interested in facing that issue at trial, knowing it could blow up their whole case. That means they are more likely to settle (and might not even take the case in the first place).
A strong expert investigation discourages weak claims from ending up at trial and often leads to favorable settlements. If you ever end up having to litigate your claim you’ll have a high-integrity, neutral, and credible expert witness to bolster the inevitable claims of a botched investigation.
In 2003 I wrote a little pamphlet called How to Investigate Grievances for supervisors in unionized companies where I state the goal of investigations is to follow the principles of natural justice, focusing on investigations that are, “”lawful, reasonable, accountable, and fair.”” That’s exactly what you can expect from LRI Workplace Investigations.
Please let me know if we can assist with any of your external investigation needs, and we’d appreciate any introductions to colleagues in your firm who don’t handle labor matters and may not know us.
