What Your Lawyer Wishes You Did Before the Termination: Lessons Learned from Appeals and Arbitration

2026 CALPELRA Annual Training Conference 
CALPELRA2026: Digital Future Human Leadership

CALPELRA's 2026 Annual Training Conference, the 51st annual CALPELRA conference, will be held in beautiful Monterey, California, the week of November 18 - 20.

AALRR partner Kate Kowalski also with Patrick Sutton (Prism) and Armineh Megrabyan (Kessel & Megrabyan) will speak at the 2026 CALPELRA Annual Training Conference. They will present...

What Your Lawyer Wishes You Did Before the Termination: Lessons Learned from Appeals and Arbitration

In this round-table session, three experienced employment law attorneys will share lessons they have learned from all aspects of the discipline and termination process, including investigating and documenting misconduct, drafting disciplinary notices, navigating the Skelly process, and defending terminations in appeal hearings and arbitration. The presenters will point out pitfalls to avoid such as reluctant witnesses, ambiguous policies, insufficient documentation of misconduct and performance problems, and new supervisors taking a more aggressive approach to discipline. Participants will have the opportunity to weigh in throughout the presentation to ask questions and share their own challenges. The presentation will cover important substantive issues in the discipline and appeal process such as required disclosures of documents and witnesses, framing the issue, and who has the burden of proof on which issues.

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