IHELC meeting: Investigations for in-house employment lawyers

Attendance at this event is restricted to in-house lawyers who either specialise exclusively in or undertake a significant proportion of employment work.

At the next meeting of our In-house Employment Lawyers Club, we’ll look at how to run a good investigation in the current climate. We’ll cover key investigation issues from the in-house employment lawyer’s perspective, including:

• Decision paralysis

– it’s easy to flounder in process muddle when an allegation first arrives but this can send the wrong signals and even lead to allegations of cover-up. We’ll look at scenario planning to help the business make initial decisions confidently and quickly

• Conflicts of interest - what if the allegations involve your most senior people or include claims that HR have already mishandled things?

• Choosing an investigator and briefing them properly – we’ll cover the different types of investigation, how to choose between them, who the investigator should be and what the investigation report needs to address.

• Tricky evidence issues – how should you advise the business on privilege, anonymity, data privacy, parallel criminal proceedings and recording of interviews?

• Managing outcomes – you have an investigation report, but what next? Who needs to know and decide what?

• Too many hats! – what are the pitfalls with organising both an (open) investigation and the (behind the scenes) legal advice? Our session will draw out the distinctions between these roles.