- Jurisdiction—including actions covered and withdrawn appeals
- Timeliness—including late appeals
- Whistleblower Reprisal—including individual rights of action, otherwise appealable actions, corrective actions, and disciplinary cases
- USERRA and VEOA
- Contractual and Mixed Cases—including grievance procedures
- Investigating and Documenting Misconduct
- Evidence—including burden of proof, forms of evidence, admissibility, weight of the evidence, and evidentiary shortcuts
- Adverse Action Procedures—including notice, reply, and decision
- Selecting and Drafting Charges—including how to select and frame a sustainable charge and common charges
- Establishing a Nexus—including common nexus issues
- Selecting and Defending the Penalty—including Douglas factors
- Performance-Based Actions—including using valid performance standards, performance improvement periods, and whether to take action
- Affirmative Defenses—including harmful error, discrimination, prohibited personnel practices and whistleblower reprisal
- Responding to the Appeal—including filing a timely response, challenging jurisdiction or timeliness, and dealing with confidential appeals
- Proper Parties and Actions—including consolidation and joiner, class appeals, and intervenors
- Prehearing Practice—including MSPB’s 120-day processing goal, motion practice, service requirements, discovery, and witnesses
- Settlement—including common settlement terms, entering settlement into the record, and settlement challenges
- Hearing—including format, role of representatives and AJ, presenting evidence, direct and cross examination, and objections
- Decision and Review—including the initial decision, interim relief, PFRs, and judicial review
- Remedies—including corrective action, compliance, and attorney fees
- Appendix I: Research Tools—including MSPB, OPM, private sector, and other federal government sources
- Appendix II: Sample Forms—including agency adverse action and performance-based forms, appeal forms, acknowledgment orders, subpoenas, and agency-generated appeal forms
- Appendix III: Statutes and Regulations
- Appendix IV: Glossary
|