{"id":15334,"date":"2011-10-20T08:42:05","date_gmt":"2011-10-20T13:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=15334"},"modified":"2011-10-20T08:43:54","modified_gmt":"2011-10-20T13:43:54","slug":"ombuds-perspective-on-whistleblowing-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/10\/ombuds-perspective-on-whistleblowing-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Ombuds Perspective on Whistleblowing Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last week, we had wonderful talk entitled\u00a0Blowing the Whistle on Whistleblowing Laws.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Attorney\u00a0Charles L. (Chuck) Howard\u00a0<\/a>is one of the few attorneys in the U.S. with extensive expertise in the legal issues of ombudsmen.\u00a0Howard has a national practice in representing organizational ombudsmen at universities, multinational corporations, and research institutions.\u00a0 His new book, entitled\u00a0The Organizational Ombudsman: Origins, Roles and Operations–A Legal Guide<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, was just published by the American Bar Association (ABA) and is the nation\u2019s definitive resource book about ombudsmen, mediation, and their impact in the workplace.<\/p>\n

In this presentation, he explored how fear of retaliation limits the effectiveness of whistleblower laws and policies.\u00a0There are hundreds of whistleblower laws in the United States that provide incentives for people to report misconduct and prohibit retaliation against them for doing so. While recoveries from laws like the False Claims Act are significant, the perception \u2014 and often the reality \u2014 of what happens to whistleblowers who do come forward is that they pay dearly for their actions. In addition to trying to reward whistleblowers, why are we not also looking for better ways to help people address workplace conflict or misconduct without having to be a whistleblower? Howard argued that an organizational ombudsman can help an organization address this gap between encouraging the reporting of misconduct and protecting those who raise issues.<\/p>\n

Several of my\u00a0students’ comments about the talk are below:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

When a classmate asked me about the Chuck Howard presentation, all I could say is that \u201cthe system has failed, and I have no idea how to fix it.\u201d\u00a0 Howard argued that the current whistleblowing procedures are ineffective.\u00a0 Businesses have inadequate internal procedures for whistleblowing, which is\u00a0why the claim makes it to the legal process.\u00a0 However, Howard spent most of his time explaining that the whistleblowing laws are also ineffective.\u00a0 The main flaw is that it is still too easy for employers to retaliate against whistleblowers.\u00a0 Because we live in an adversarial system, once an individual blows the whistle on misconduct in the workplace, he or she will inevitably soon find themselves in a lengthy, expensive, and stressful litigation process.\u00a0 Howard painted a dark picture of how this litigation process tragically changed the lives of many whistleblowers. He concluded the presentation by offering the ombudsman model as a solution to the problems of whistleblowing laws, but, while good in theory, it would seem that the model\u2019s success will depend on a firm putting forth sound internal rules and procedures around the ombudsman position.\u00a0 Do firms have the right incentives to adopt such a model?<\/p>\n

Is whistleblowing an ethical obligation to ruin your career? After last week\u2019s talk, it is frightful to think that at some point, I may be in the same situation that many unfortunate, yet dutiful, employees have found themselves in. Many careers mandate that certain unethical or\u00a0unsafe\u00a0conduct be brought to the higher-ups’ attention. This is exactly what many people have done. In fact, had they not, they would have\u00a0faced consequences with their own employers or professional associations. That being said, it is remarkable that some whistleblowers are prosecuted, or\u00a0threatened with prosecution, after\u00a0choosing to do the moral and legally correct thing. If the laws are not actually protecting what is most important to a professional, reputation, then what is the incentive to blow the whistle, particularly in matters where someone is unsure if a violation or wrongdoing is actually occurring?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cross posted at Indisputably.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, we had wonderful talk entitled\u00a0Blowing the Whistle on Whistleblowing Laws.\u00a0\u00a0Attorney\u00a0Charles L. (Chuck) Howard\u00a0is one of the few attorneys in the U.S. with extensive expertise in the legal issues of ombudsmen.\u00a0Howard has a national practice in representing organizational ombudsmen at universities, multinational corporations, and research institutions.\u00a0 His new book, entitled\u00a0The Organizational Ombudsman: Origins, Roles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,33,122,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-regulation","category-labor-employment-law","category-public","category-speakers","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}