While you’re here, you may wish to attend one of our upcoming workshops:
Progressive Skills Series: Navigating Evidentiary Challenges
This advanced workshop equips experienced investigators with practical strategies for navigating these increasingly common challenges, enabling them to make fair, well-reasoned, and defensible findings when the evidence is anything but straightforward.
In Episode 5, Lisa Southern, a founding partner of Southern Law in Vancouver and the first Integrity Commissioner for the City of Vancouver, joins Investigator Chronicles host Christine Thomlinson to talk about her path from labour and employment lawyer to adjudicator to investigator, and what her career across hearing rooms and institutional files has taught her about running a fair, effective process.
Christine and Lisa dig into how Lisa’s experience as an adjudicator prepared her for conducting workplace investigations. Lisa has done extensive work on high profile investigations where legal counsel often represent the parties. She shares her insights on managing what sometimes looks to her like “theatre” – when counsel seem to be focused on trying to shut down the investigation instead of simply allowing their party client to participate. Lisa has also learned to ensure that her process is flexible and nimble so she can adapt to suit the investigation before her.
Including:
- The mindset shift when lawyers move from advocate to investigator
- The physical tells Lisa watches for in herself when under pressure
- Why investigating boards, C-suites, and elected officials is such a different, far more public and litigious process than investigating frontline employees
Lisa Southern is a founding partner of Southern Law in Vancouver, British Columbia. She started out practicing labour and employment law before being appointed as an adjudicator and, later, Registrar of the BC Labour Relations Board. That experience carried her back into private practice and into investigation work, including extensive school board work as well as investigations involving elected officials and senior leadership. She was appointed the first Integrity Commissioner for the City of Vancouver and has since served as Integrity or Ethics Commissioner for a range of organizations, including unions and First Nations groups.
Learn more about Lisa and Southern Law: https://www.southernlaw.ca/
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