Sharpening Your Skills: Best Practices for Conducting Internal Investigations

Catherine Guttman-McCabe is a Partner at Potomac Law Group with more than twenty years of experience in employment and education law.  Her unique practice focuses on educational institutions, including colleges and universities, public and independent schools, associations, courseware developers, and service providers.  In addition to employment matters, she provides advice and counseling related to federal and state education regulations, accreditation, distance education, governance, faculty tenure, student discipline, equal educational opportunity, campus security, privacy, student financial assistance, and consumer protection.  She has a deep understanding of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the Jeanne Clery Act, the Higher Education Act, and other federal, state and local statues concerning education. 

Ms. Guttman-McCabe regularly advises organizations on personnel policies and practices, employee handbooks, compensation, worker classification, leave issues, background checks, performance management, employment agreements, equal employment opportunity, internal investigations, termination of employment, dispute resolution, and training.  She helps clients comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and other federal, state and local statutes concerning employment. 

In addition to providing advice and counseling, Ms. Guttman-McCabe conducts internal investigations, compliance reviews, and training.  She represents clients before administrative agencies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights, and the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education.  She has authored public comments for state and federal agency rulemaking proceedings and represented clients in federal audits and reviews of educational institutions. 

Peter Land is a Partner at Husch Blackwell. He concentrates his practice on serving private and public sector higher education institutions and academic medical centers in a wide array of litigation and counseling matters. 

He advocates on behalf of educational institutions in court and agency proceedings, mediations and arbitrations. He also counsels on employment and student disputes, drafts policies and provides training and guidance to key personnel and students. 

Clients rely on Pete’s extensive experience conducting sensitive internal investigations. He prepares confidential, privileged reports and assists decision-makers in addressing investigative findings in a variety of contexts, including board-mandated, sexual misconduct, athletic department, and scientific misconduct and non-compliance investigations. 

Pete litigates employment discrimination and harassment cases, faculty terminations and tenure disputes, Title IX sexual assault claims, institutional governance issues, First Amendment disputes, student matters, school and program closings, noncompete agreement and trade secret disputes, and defamation and privacy issues. He has also counseled institutions on False Claims Act issues relating to scientific misconduct, accommodation and leave requests pursuant to the ADA and FMLA, privacy issues and compliance with FERPA, academic program closures and institutional affiliations, reductions in force, compliance with Title IX student discipline and gender equity standards, accreditation issues and investigations by the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights, the EEOC, and state and municipal administrative agencies.  

Before joining the firm, Pete was co-chair of the Higher Education Practice Group at a mid-sized Chicago law firm and a partner in Babbitt, Land & Warner LLP, which focused on higher education legal services.  He frequently presents at conferences, seminars and webinars on significant legal issues affecting higher education. 

Olabisi “Bisi” Okubadejo currently serves as Associate Vice President of Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action, and Compliance at Georgetown University.  Prior to transitioning to Georgetown, Bisi was in private practice and focused on civil rights and employment issues in higher education, particularly on matters arising from alleged discrimination on the basis of race, disability, religion, age, and sex, including sexual harassment and sexual violence.

Bisi also worked as a supervisory attorney with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).  While in private practice, Bisi advised colleges and universities on their compliance with federal laws, including Title IX, the ADA, Section 504, the Clery Act, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination Act, FERPA, and Title VII. She has experience working with educational institutions and business entities on digital accessibility issues, including compliance with government settlement agreements and ensuring the accessibility of websites and course materials. Bisi’s experience includes providing interactive training on civil rights issues to coordinators, administrators, hearing panels/judicial boards, campus safety departments, and students. She also has significant experience conducting and overseeing internal investigations and program reviews of higher education institutions and other employers, and auditing policies and procedures.