Assisting You With The Formal Complaint And Investigation
If you are a federal employee who has suffered workplace harassment or discrimination, your case will move through several stages. At every point, it is critical to have experienced legal counsel on your side to protect your rights and obtain justice.
At Gilbert Employment Law, P.C., we represent federal employees nationwide and abroad in discrimination cases, harassment cases and other Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) matters.
Step Two: Submitting The Formal Complaint
If your case did not settle in the pre-complaint counseling stage or through ADR, then you will have to proceed to file a formal complaint. Your deadline will be very short: just 15 calendar days from when you received your notice that the counseling stage was over.
With decades of experience in federal discrimination law and procedures, our attorneys know precisely what it takes to ensure that the formal complaint adequately and accurately frames the issues in your case. Our skill can help you avoid having your case dismissed because you raised an untimely issue, for instance, or raised a complaint at the formal stage that you did not raise at the informal stage.
Step Three: Participating In The Investigation
At the investigation stage, the agency usually contracts a professional investigator to interview witnesses, obtain their statements and gather other relevant evidence. The investigator will then compile the evidence into a “report of investigation.” (A few agencies use “fact-finding conferences” for the investigation).
The agency is required to complete this investigation within 180 days of when you submitted your formal complaint. Gilbert Employment Law, P.C., has been very successful in getting sanctions awarded against agencies that miss this deadline to an employee’s detriment.
You can rely on our law firm to clearly guide and counsel you in all facets of the investigation including:
- Providing your statement or affidavit to the investigator
- Pointing the investigator to relevant witnesses who should be contacted
- Ensuring that the investigator looks into all claims in your complaint
- Ensuring that any supporting documents in your possession go to the investigator
- Informing the investigator of other documents that he or she should request from other individuals or offices
Step Four: Reviewing The Report Of Investigation
After we receive the final Report of Investigation (RoI), our lawyers will review it. If it is deficient, we can take appropriate action to correct it. This may even involve asking the EEOC judge to sanction the agency for an inadequate investigation. The RoI needs to be as accurate and complete as possible because, if the case goes to a hearing before the EEOC, the report will provide the judge with his or her first impression of the case and the relative merits of your claim.
If you don’t have a strong statement and strong evidence in the report, the judge’s first impression of your case will be a weak one. Our mission is to do the opposite: to present your case in the strongest possible light.
Contact us by email or call us at 888-676-8096 for experienced legal advice nationwide.
