VM Attorneys Presenting at the 2025 CALPELRA Annual Training Conference – Nov. 18-21
CALPELRA's 2025 Annual Training Conference, the 50th annual CALPELRA conference will be held in beautiful Monterey, California, the week of November 18-21.
For 50 years, CALPELRA's Annual Training Conference has provided an interactive forum for learning and sharing the experiences of public sector professionals with diverse knowledge, skills, and abilities at all levels of government throughout California.
The Conference offers a wide variety of labor, human resources, and employment training sessions, including educational and skill-building presentations that discuss new and critical issues and that encourage audience interaction and participation, as well as personal and professional development. CALPELRA's Annual Conference Program Committee selects session content that will best prepare CALPELRA's members and Conference participants for the challenges and opportunities public agencies currently face.
Conference sessions are relevant not only to labor relations and human resources professionals, but also to professional management and supervisory individuals responsible for risk management, finance, benefits, leave administration, and recruitment, as well as attorneys and other professionals working in police, fire, insurance, workers' comp, and other agency departments or human resources related areas.
Don’t Miss Our Sessions!
Moving Forward With AI: Identifying And Resolving Common Concerns About AI In Workplace Investigations
Wednesday, November 18th, 2:30 p.m.
Eli Makus, Van Dermyden Makus Law Corporation
Christina Ro-Connolly, Oppenheimer Investigations Group
The rise of artificial intelligence has impacted nearly every aspect of our daily lives, including the workplace. For labor and employment professionals, AI can be a valuable tool in workplace investigations, but it also raises important questions about ethics, fairness, and privacy. In this session you’ll learn about common concerns related to AI in workplace investigations, including how to balance AI’s efficiency with the need for human oversight in investigations. You’ll gain practical guidance for navigating these issues responsibly and responding to those who have concerns, so that you may utilize AI effectively while ensuring that investigations are fair and transparent.
Cooperation Over Conflict: Interviewee Representatives In Investigative Interviews
Wednesday, November 18th, 3:50 p.m.
Nikki Hall, Van Dermyden Makus Law Corporation
Carl Larson, Van Dermyden Makus Law Corporation
The investigative interview is one of the most dynamic, interesting, and challenging elements of a workplace investigation. This is especially true when the interviewee is accompanied by an attorney or union representative. This session provides an interactive learning experience filled with practical guidance and tips to help investigators prepare for and conduct investigative interviews that make the most of a representative’s participation in the investigative process. The presence of a union representative or attorney in an investigative interview can be an intimidating prospect, even for seasoned investigators. You’ll learn how an investigator can transform potential conflict and complication into productive cooperation and partnership, and how an investigator can build rapport with an interviewee’s representative early on in the investigative process and encourage them to serve as a positive, productive, and cooperative partner, rather than an adversary. You’ll also learn how to avoid and mitigate unnecessary conflict that can quickly derail an interview. And perhaps most importantly, this session will unpack a toolbox full of techniques and talking points to tackle those situations when conflict cannot be avoided, so you can move forward, together.
Beyond I Said/You Said (Or He Said/She Said): Credibility Assessments In Investigations Involving Limited Evidence
Thursday, November 19th, 3:50 p.m.
Mark Gabel, Van Dermyden Makus Law Corporation
Nikki Hall, Van Dermyden Makus Law Corporation
Workplace investigators often encounter situations – commonly known as “he said/she said” scenarios – in which key facts depend solely on contradictory witness statements with little or no direct corroborating evidence. In this session you’ll learn about tools and strategies investigators can use to develop clear, defensible findings in these situations. You’ll learn about a systematic, practical approach to factual analysis and credibility assessment in these and other situations in which evidence is limited. Through case studies based on actual investigations, this session’s presenters will show you how to apply these methods to resolve investigations and make findings, even when the evidence may at first glance appear deadlocked. You’ll learn how “I said/you said” evidence is analyzed in litigation, and how to write and document your analysis in a way that withstands scrutiny. The ability to resolve difficult credibility assessments based on limited evidence is an essential skill in workplace investigations. Join this session and learn how to turn a challenging aspect of workplace investigations into a structured, consistent process.
