Seven Lessons from Two Decades of Investigations
June 2, 2026
Over the past twenty years, Kurker Paget LLC has conducted hundreds of investigations for K–12 schools, colleges and universities, private employers, and not-for-profit organizations. We have also taught seminars on investigation best practices for investigators. The observations below are principles we find ourselves returning to again and again, in our own work and in the questions we receive from the professionals we train.
1. Internal complaints tend to rise in the wake of broader cultural moments.
Over the years, we have noticed a consistent pattern: the volume and nature of internal complaints often tracks what is happening in the wider culture. Title IX reports increased sharply in the early 2010s as federal guidance sharpened and awareness grew. Sexual harassment complaints surged in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Reports of race-based harassment rose significantly following the death of George Floyd in 2020. As COVID-19 spread and public discourse around its origins intensified, so did reports of anti-Asian harassment in workplaces and on campuses. And as conflict in the Middle East has dominated headlines in recent years, there has been a marked increase in complaints involving antisemitism.
Lesson. Don’t be caught unprepared. When a significant cultural moment affecting a particular community occurs, think proactively about how your organization will support that population, how you will communicate available reporting resources, and how your team will handle a potential increase in reports. Preparation is not an overreaction. It is good institutional stewardship.
2. For everyone involved, an investigation is rarely a routine event.
To those who oversee investigations, the process can feel familiar and procedural. For the people living through it, it is often one of the most stressful experiences of their professional or academic lives.
For complainants, being interviewed may mean revisiting something they have worked hard to put behind them — often with genuine anxiety about whether they will be believed and what the process may cost them, regardless of how it ends. For respondents, an investigation can feel like a career or academic future hanging in the balance. The fear of discipline, termination, or dismissal, and the potential damage to one’s professional reputation, can be profound, even if the respondent is ultimately found not to have violated policy.
Lesson. Investigators should approach every interview with genuine empathy for everyone in the room (or on the screen, as now is often the case). That does not mean softening findings or shading conclusions. It means recognizing that the person you are interviewing may be carrying real emotional pain, and that how you conduct the process matters, not only what you conclude.
3. Witnesses are not bystanders — they are participants who often did not ask to be.
Witnesses frequently know and care about both parties, but the dynamics can be more complicated than simple loyalty. A witness may be subordinate to the respondent or complainant and quietly fear retaliation, regardless of any assurances they are given. They may feel forced to choose a side, worry that what they say will affect someone they respect, or struggle to recall details. Unlike the parties, they often do not have access to formal support resources or procedural guidance.
Lesson. Treat witnesses with the same care you extend to the parties. Explain the process before you begin, acknowledge that this may be an uncomfortable position, and make clear that their only obligation is to share what they actually know.
4. An investigation’s outcome affects both parties, not just the one who prevails.
We often observe a misunderstanding of what an investigation can and cannot determine. There are two distinct questions at play: Did the respondent’s conduct rise to the level of a policy violation? And did the complainant experience something real and upsetting? The first is a policy determination; it requires sufficient, credible evidence to conclude that conduct met a defined standard, such as creating a hostile work or learning environment. The answer to the second question is often yes, regardless of the outcome. A complainant may have felt genuinely mistreated and been significantly affected, all without the evidence rising to the level of a policy violation.
But the impact of an investigation does not fall only on complainants. A respondent who is ultimately found not to have violated policy may nonetheless carry the weight of having been accused. The process itself: the interviews, the uncertainty, the awareness that colleagues may know something is happening—can leave a lasting mark.
Lesson. Support resources should be available to both parties independent of the investigation’s outcome. The investigation answers a policy question. The organization’s obligation to its people goes further than that.
5. Your gut feeling about who is telling the truth is not evidence.
Many people form rapid, intuitive impressions about honesty and credibility. In a formal investigation, acting on those impressions without grounding them in evidence can seriously undermine the integrity of the process. Credibility assessment must rest on articulable, evidence-grounded factors: Is each party’s account internally consistent? Are they giving materially the same account each time they are asked? Is the account corroborated by documents, other witnesses, or established facts? Has it changed over time? Is there any evidence of motive to fabricate or exaggerate?
Lesson. Before you document a credibility finding, ask yourself whether you can articulate why you find this person more or less credible in terms that reference the evidence. If the honest answer is, “it just didn’t seem right,” or “it just didn’t seem believable,” keep digging until you can identify what, specifically, created that impression and whether the evidence actually supports it.
6. Parties often see the same events differently.
In investigations, deliberate fabrication is the exception, not the rule. What we encounter far more often is this: both parties agree on a surprisingly broad set of underlying facts, but interpret and describe them very differently because they experienced the situation through different lenses. A complainant who felt dismissed or demeaned may describe an interaction in terms that reflect how it landed for them. A respondent who considered the exchange unremarkable may describe the very same moment in entirely neutral terms.
Lesson. Resist the impulse to frame every conflicting account as a contest between a liar and a truth-teller. Focus on what the objective evidence can establish, and evaluate each party’s account against that, not simply against each other.
7. Demeanor is rarely a reliable indicator of credibility.
We are culturally conditioned to believe that a person who speaks calmly, makes eye contact, and answers without hesitation is telling the truth, and that a person who fidgets, rambles, or struggles to recall details is not. In investigations, this intuition can lead us badly astray.
A person who is telling the truth may appear anxious, distracted, or halting because that is simply who they are, or because being formally interviewed is genuinely nerve-wracking regardless of whether their account is accurate. Conversely, a person who is being less than candid may come across as composed, articulate, and resolute because that is their baseline demeanor under pressure.
Lesson. Use demeanor as a flag, not a finding. If something about how a person presents gives you pause, note it, then look for the underlying evidence that would confirm or explain that impression. Demeanor can prompt a question. It cannot necessarily answer one.
For further information about Kurker Paget LLC's investigation practice, contact Allyson E. Kurker and Margaret H. Paget at Kurker Paget LLC.