INVESTIGATIONS

Amy Stephson conducted over 285 investigations for a large range of public and private entities over a 20 year period until late 2016. Her public clients included state agencies and community colleges, King County, the City of Seattle, Indian tribes, and many other counties and cities. She also conducted numerous investigations for health care organizations, public school districts, and other private nonprofit and for profit organizations.

Amy's work took her throughout the state of Washington in both urban and rural areas. She investigated a wide variety of issues including discrimination, harassment, retaliation, abusive and poor management, internet misuse, sexual misconduct, substance abuse, favoritism, disability accommodation, bullying, and tort claims. The investigations involved individuals at all organizational levels ranging from top management to line staff in a range of blue

and white collar work environments, both unionized and not.

Investigations rarely arise out of just one incident or raise one issue. Generally they involve a range of problems including potential legal, management, communication, personality, and systems issues. The events may be relatively undisputed or unclear and filtered through different employees' perceptual lenses. In conducting investigations, Amy teased out all of these different strands in order to clarify the situation so that her clients could better resolve them. She also worked to defuse the stresses an investigation can produce by conducting interviews that not only elicited the necessary information, but made the witnesses comfortable and left them feeling heard.

Amy's reports were clearly and succinctly written and were designed to be self-contained documents that enabled her client to see the investigative process, the evidence gathered, her conclusions, and the analysis underlying each conclusion. If desired, she provided recommendations, in the main report, a separate report, or orally.