EEOC Proposes Major Changes to the Federal EEO Process: What Federal Employees Could Lose

The proposal would eliminate the current right to request an EEOC administrative judge after the investigation, sharply limit discovery, and give the employing agency the first decision on the merits.

Author: Anthony Cacciatore

Status: Proposed rule only. Current Part 1614 deadlines still apply.

On August 26, 2026, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released a 150 page proposal to rewrite the rules that govern discrimination complaints by federal employees and applicants. If adopted in anything close to its current form, it would change the federal EEO process more than any rulemaking in decades.

Some of the proposed changes are overdue. The current system is painfully slow. Mandatory EEO counseling rarely resolves cases. Investigations miss deadlines, cases sit waiting for judges, and employees can spend years in an administrative process before getting an answer.

But the proposal does not simply speed up the same system. It takes away several procedural rights federal employees have today. Most importantly, an employee would lose the current right to request an EEOC administrative judge after the investigation. The employee would also lose the current right to seek discovery at that stage. The agency accused of discrimination would investigate the case, the record would close after a short period for additional evidence, and that same agency would issue the first decision on whether discrimination occurred.

The EEOC would still review agency decisions on appeal, and it could send selected cases or issues to an administrative judge. That referral would be discretionary. Discovery and a hearing would also be discretionary and could be limited to only the issues the Commission chooses to refer.

For federal employees, that is a major shift. The problem in many EEO cases is not that the employee has no evidence. The problem is that the most important evidence belongs to the agency: management emails, HR advice, selection notes, comparator records, reasonable accommodation discussions, internal messages, and testimony from decision makers. The current administrative judge process gives employees a way to get at evidence that an agency investigation missed. The proposal would make that much harder.

Official sources: EEOC Proposed Rule, RIN 3046-AB46 | Current 29 C.F.R. Part 1614

Current law has not changed. Federal employees should continue to follow the existing 45 day counseling deadline and all current Part 1614 deadlines unless and until a final rule takes effect.

The practical change in one example

Assume an employee asks for a reasonable accommodation. Management denies it. The employee files an EEO complaint and the agency assigns an investigator. The investigator takes an affidavit from the supervisor, but never asks for the emails between the supervisor, HR, and the reasonable accommodation coordinator. The investigator does not interview a key witness and does not obtain information about how similar requests were handled.

Today, once the investigation is finished, the employee can request an EEOC administrative judge. The judge can oversee development of the record. The employee can seek documents, written answers, admissions, and depositions. If the agency refuses to cooperate or the investigation is materially deficient, the judge has tools to address the problem.

Under the proposal, the employee would receive the investigative file and have 15 days to submit additional evidence. That is useful if the employee already has the missing evidence. It does not solve the problem when the missing evidence is sitting in agency email accounts or in records the employee has never seen. After the 15-day period, the record closes, and the agency issues its decision. The employee can then appeal and ask the EEOC to refer the case for additional proceedings, but there would be no right to that referral or to discovery.

That example is why I think the loss of the administrative judge election matters more than the change from 45 days to 60 days. It changes who controls development of the evidence.

Current process compared with the proposed process

Issue	Current rule	Proposed rule
Starting the case	Contact an EEO counselor, generally within 45 days. A formal complaint is generally due within 15 days after the notice of right to file.	File a written complaint directly with the agency, generally within 60 days.
Adding related claims	Like or related claims may be added during the investigation. After a hearing request, amendments can be requested from the administrative judge.	Claims that already existed when the complaint was filed generally must be added within 21 days. Later events may be supplemented if they are like or related.
Investigation	The agency develops the record, generally within 180 days.	The agency still develops the record. The proposed deadline is 180 days during the transition period and generally 135 days beginning January 1, 2028.
After the investigation	The employee may request an EEOC administrative judge or ask the agency for an immediate final decision.	The parties have 15 days to submit additional evidence. The record then closes and the agency issues the final agency decision.
Administrative judge	The employee may request an administrative judge after the investigation or after the investigation deadline expires.	The employee may ask for an administrative judge only as part of an EEOC appeal. The EEOC decides whether a referral is necessary or efficient.
Discovery	The parties have the right to seek reasonable discovery under the administrative judge’s control.	No discovery unless the EEOC referral order or administrative judge authorizes it. Any discovery is limited to what is necessary and proportional to the referred issues.
Class complaints	Part 1614 has an administrative class complaint process.	Administrative class certification and adjudication would be eliminated.

The EEOC’s own cases show what can go wrong with agency investigations

The proposal rests heavily on the idea that most federal EEO complaints can be decided fairly from the agency’s investigative file. Sometimes they can. A careful investigator can identify the disputed issues, obtain the important documents, interview the right witnesses, gather comparator evidence, and develop facts that cut both ways. But federal employees should not be asked to assume that this always happens. The EEOC’s own rules and case law show that it does not.

The current system has a specific answer for an inadequate investigation. EEOC Management Directive 110 says that when there has been no investigation, or the investigation is incomplete or inadequate, and the employee properly requests a hearing, the record is to be developed under the supervision of the administrative judge. That can happen through discovery, orders requiring production of documents, comparative data or affidavits, and orders requiring witnesses to appear. The Commission built that safeguard into the process because investigation failures are a known problem, not a theoretical one.

Cox v. Social Security Administration, EEOC Appeal No. 0720050055 (Dec. 24, 2009), is a particularly important example because it involved an outside contractor. The Commission rejected the agency’s attempt to distance itself from the contractor’s work and made clear that the agency remains responsible for a complete and timely investigation. As the Commission put it, contracting out the investigation does not relieve the agency of that responsibility. The administrative judge ultimately entered default judgment after finding that the agency had inadequately developed the factual record, failed to respond to discovery, and failed to comply with orders requiring witnesses and a response to a show cause order.

The cases are not limited to delay. In Petersel v. U.S. Postal Service, EEOC Appeal No. 0720060075 (Oct. 30, 2008), the investigative record failed to include comparative evidence and the Commission upheld an adverse inference against the agency. In McDaniel v. Department of Veterans Affairs, EEOC Appeal No. 0120070869 (May 22, 2008), the agency failed to produce the applications, certificate of eligibles and selecting official’s notes needed to evaluate a nonselection claim, even after the investigator requested the material and warned of possible sanctions. The Commission drew an adverse inference and found discrimination. In Graham v. Department of Transportation, EEOC Appeal No. 01986987 (2001), supervisors ignored the investigator, refused to provide necessary information and attempted to persuade the investigator to stop the investigation. The Commission upheld the administrative judge’s authority to sanction that conduct.

More recently, Genaro G. v. Department of Homeland Security, EEOC Appeal No. 2020004241 (Aug. 9, 2022), involved an agency that blamed a shortage of contract investigators with the necessary security clearances. The report of investigation arrived hundreds of days late and was deficient. The administrative judge ordered training and required the agency to bear part of the cost of discovery needed to repair the record. The Commission agreed that the agency remained responsible for the failure, whether the problem came from employees, contractors, or the agency’s failure to make enough qualified investigators available.

The lesson from these cases is straightforward. The federal EEO process already has a body of law dealing with incomplete investigations, missing documents, destroyed records, uncooperative management officials, discovery failures and interference with the investigative process. Administrative judges have used adverse inferences, evidentiary restrictions, training orders, discovery orders, cost shifting and, in extreme cases, default judgment to protect the integrity of the process. Under the proposal, the employee would lose the current ability to invoke that independent hearing stage as a matter of right. The Commission could still correct a bad record on appeal, but whether to supplement the record, remand it, or refer all or part of the case to an administrative judge would be up to the Commission.

Discovery is often how an employee finds out what the investigation left out

The proposal is openly critical of discovery. The EEOC says the current process has become too formal, expensive, and adversarial. Some of that criticism is fair. Discovery can be overused by either side, and broad discovery requests can be especially difficult for an employee who has no lawyer. But the existence of discovery disputes does not erase the reason discovery exists in the first place.

In many discrimination cases, discovery is the first point at which an employee can test whether the agency’s explanation actually holds up. The Report of Investigation may contain the supervisor’s affidavit saying there were legitimate reasons for a decision. Discovery can reveal the contemporaneous emails, draft documents, comparator files, scoring sheets, text messages, meeting notes, or testimony that show whether that explanation was actually the one management was using at the time.

A nonselection case may require interview notes, scoring sheets, applications, panel communications, and testimony from selecting officials. A retaliation case may require proof of who knew about protected EEO activity, when they knew it, and what was discussed before the challenged action. A discipline case may turn on comparator records and internal HR advice. A reasonable accommodation case may require communications among management, HR, the reasonable accommodation office, and medical staff. Those records are usually controlled by the agency.

Giving an employee 15 days after receipt of the investigative file to submit more evidence does not solve that problem. An employee cannot submit an email she has never seen, a comparator file she cannot access, or testimony from a management official who was never asked the important questions. A short opportunity to add evidence is useful when the employee already possesses the evidence. It is a poor substitute for a mechanism that can require the agency to produce evidence it did not collect during its own investigation.

The proposal acknowledges this tension, but its answer is striking. It says that when a complaint requires lengthy formal proceedings or extensive development of the record through discovery, a civil action in federal district court may be the more appropriate avenue. That deserves much more attention than it receives in the proposal.

Federal court is not a free substitute for the administrative process

There is an obvious tension in the EEOC’s own explanation. The Commission begins from the premise that the federal EEO process is supposed to resolve discrimination complaints more quickly, less formally, and less expensively than federal court. It then argues that cases needing substantial discovery should be litigated in federal court instead. That does not make the litigation burden disappear. It moves the burden somewhere else.

The EEOC reports that it received an average of 7,514 hearing requests per year from fiscal year 2017 through fiscal year 2025. No one can know how many of those employees would file a civil action if the hearing option disappears, and it would be wrong to assume that all or even most of them would. But even a modest shift would mean hundreds of additional federal employment cases, and a larger shift could mean thousands. Those cases would go to federal judges and court staff, and they would have to be defended by the Department of Justice, United States Attorneys’ Offices, and agency counsel. The same agencies would still have to collect records, prepare witnesses, answer discovery, take depositions, brief motions, and potentially try cases.

That potential transfer of work is substantial when viewed against the existing federal court docket. The federal judiciary reported 10,609 civil rights employment filings during the 12 month period ending March 31, 2025. The EEOC’s current hearing docket is therefore not trivial in comparison. The proposal may reduce the EEOC administrative judge caseload, but some portion of that work is likely to reappear elsewhere if employees conclude that federal court is the only place where they can meaningfully obtain evidence and test credibility.

The Department of Justice already identifies employment discrimination litigation as a distinct part of its work defending the federal government, with United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Civil Division representing agencies in Title VII, Rehabilitation Act, ADEA and related cases. I do not see a corresponding analysis in this proposal of the downstream effect on DOJ, agency litigation budgets, or the federal courts if more employees are pushed toward civil litigation. There is no free lunch here. Reducing one docket by transferring difficult cases to another forum is not the same thing as reducing the amount of litigation.

The administrative judge right would become a request

Under current 29 C.F.R. § 1614.109, when a complainant properly requests a hearing, the Commission appoints an administrative judge. The judge takes responsibility for adjudicating the complaint and overseeing development of the record. The current rules also give both parties the right to seek reasonable discovery.

The proposed rule would remove that election. After the agency issues its final decision, the employee could appeal to the EEOC and ask for administrative judge proceedings. The employee would have to identify the issues that need a referral and explain why the proceedings are necessary or efficient.

The EEOC could refer a matter when the written record cannot fairly resolve a genuine factual dispute, when a material credibility determination is required, when the investigation is materially incomplete, when the case presents a complex or significant issue, or when further proceedings are needed to determine relief. Those are sensible referral factors. The concern is that referral remains discretionary.

The Commission could also make the referral narrow. It could send only one claim, one factual question, one witness issue, or one remedy question to the administrative judge. Discovery would be available only if authorized, and it could be limited to the issue the Commission referred.

The proposal therefore keeps administrative judges, but it changes their role. They would no longer be a forum the employee can elect after the investigation. They would become a tool the EEOC may use during appellate review.

The EEOC has a real delay problem. Taking rights away is not the only way to fix it.

The Commission makes a strong case that the current hearing process is too slow. Its proposal reports that from fiscal year 2021 through fiscal year 2025, cases in the hearing process took an average of 442 days from docketing to an administrative judge decision. Successful complainants waited much longer, an average of 962 days. Those numbers are unacceptable.

The proposal also notes that only a small percentage of hearing requests end in a full evidentiary hearing. That statistic does not capture everything the administrative judge stage does. Cases settle after a judge is assigned. Weak claims are dismissed. Stronger claims survive summary judgment. Discovery exposes evidence that changes how both sides value the case. Judges can force an agency to produce witnesses and documents, and they can address an investigation that was not done correctly in the first place.

A system can be slow and still contain protections worth preserving. The better question is whether delay can be reduced by setting tighter schedules, narrowing discovery, staffing the hearing units appropriately, using early case conferences, and moving weak cases faster, while preserving access to an independent administrative judge when facts or credibility are genuinely disputed.

The proposed rule largely chooses a different solution. It removes thousands of cases from the administrative judge docket and makes access to a judge the exception. That will almost certainly reduce the number of cases pending before administrative judges. It may also reduce the number of employees who ever get a meaningful chance to develop evidence outside the agency’s own investigation.

Other major changes employees should know about

Mandatory counseling would end and the filing period would generally become 60 days

Today, most federal employees must contact an EEO counselor within 45 days of the discriminatory event or the effective date of the personnel action. If the matter is not resolved, the employee receives a notice of the right to file and generally has 15 days to submit the formal complaint.

The proposal would end mandatory counseling and move to direct filing. The employee would generally have 60 days to file a written complaint with the agency. For a hostile work environment or other continuing violation, the 60 day period would generally run from the most recent act alleged to be part of the violation.

I do not see elimination of mandatory counseling as the main problem with this proposal. The EEOC’s own data show counseling resolves very few cases. Agencies could still use mediation and other ADR. A direct filing model may eliminate a step that often adds weeks without accomplishing much.

The 60 day rule is not in effect now. Federal employees should continue to treat 45 days as the operative deadline unless a final rule becomes effective.

The initial written complaint would carry more weight

The proposal would require the written complaint to include enough factual allegations to state a discrimination claim that is plausible on its face. It would need to identify the challenged action, omission, policy, practice, or other matter, the protected basis, the approximate date or period, and the relief sought if known. Technical legal language would not be required.

The larger change is what happens after filing. Under current rules, like or related claims can generally be added during the investigation. Under the proposal, claims that already existed when the complaint was filed would generally have to be added within 21 days. Claims arising later could still be supplemented before the final agency decision if they are like or related.

That is a short window, especially for an employee without counsel who may not yet understand how separate events fit together. Retaliation and hostile work environment cases often make sense only after the employee lays out a chronology. Reasonable accommodation disputes can evolve as the agency changes positions or offers alternatives. A rigid front end makes drafting the first complaint much more consequential.

The investigative record would close quickly

The proposal would generally require the agency to complete an investigation within 135 days, with a 180 day transition period for complaints filed before January 1, 2028. After the investigative file is sent to the parties, each side would have 15 days to submit additional evidence. The record would then close. The agency would generally have 30 days to issue its final agency decision.

A firm deadline for agencies is welcome. The 15 day period is a different issue. Reviewing a large Report of Investigation, spotting what is missing, locating witnesses, gathering rebuttal evidence, and trying to correct omissions can take real time. Fifteen days is particularly tight when the missing material is not in the employee’s possession.

Administrative class complaints would be eliminated

The proposal would eliminate the current administrative class complaint process. Employees could still assert a putative class allegation for exhaustion purposes, and related individual complaints could be processed together, but the EEOC would no longer certify and adjudicate a class through Part 1614.

For employees challenging a common hiring practice, promotion system, return to office policy, accommodation policy, reduction in force, or another systemwide practice, that is a meaningful loss. The proposal leaves class certification to federal court, which again moves the more complex claims into the more expensive forum.

Formal settlement offers could cut off later attorney fees

The proposal would also expand the offer of resolution procedure. An agency could make a formal settlement offer earlier in the case. If the employee rejects a qualifying offer and later does not obtain more favorable relief, attorney fees and costs incurred after the offer expires could be limited.

This is not entirely new, but the proposal would make the mechanism more useful to agencies earlier in the administrative process. Employees who receive a formal offer would need to evaluate the monetary and nonmonetary terms carefully, including back pay, leave, reinstatement, record changes, damages, and attorney fees.

How the proposal could affect common federal employee cases

Reasonable accommodation cases

These cases often turn on what the employee asked for, what limitations were communicated, what alternatives were considered, whether the agency actually engaged in the interactive process, and who made the decision. Important evidence may sit with the supervisor, reasonable accommodation coordinator, HR, medical office, IT, or another component. If the investigation leaves part of that chain out, losing routine discovery makes it harder to fill the gap.

Retaliation and discipline cases

Retaliation cases often depend on timing, knowledge, shifting explanations, comparator treatment, and internal communications. An employee may know the agency’s stated reason for a suspension or reassignment does not line up with what happened, but the documents showing how the decision developed may be in management’s files. Discovery is often how that story gets tested.

Nonselection and promotion cases

Nonselection cases can be difficult even with full discovery. The relevant proof may include applications, scoring sheets, interview notes, qualification comparisons, panel communications, and testimony from selecting officials. If the investigation accepts a management explanation without collecting the underlying records, an employee may have very little ability to challenge it before the agency decides its own case.

Harassment and hostile work environment cases

Harassment cases are often fact heavy. They involve a chronology, several witnesses, disputes over what was said, and questions about what management knew and how it responded. Credibility matters. The proposal recognizes credibility disputes as a reason the EEOC may refer a case to an administrative judge. The practical question is how often that discretion will be used and how much of the case the referral will actually cover.

My view: reform the system, but do not make the employee dependent on the agency record

The federal sector EEO system needs reform. I represent employees in it every day, and I do not have much interest in defending delays that serve nobody. Counseling can be a box checking exercise. Reports of Investigation arrive late. Cases can sit for months waiting for an initial conference. Discovery can get out of hand. Summary judgment practice can become more complicated than the underlying dispute.

Those problems support serious procedural reform. They do not justify removing the quality control mechanism that currently exists when the agency’s investigation is incomplete. If investigations are supposed to carry more of the weight, the answer should be stronger investigation standards and meaningful enforcement of those standards. It should not be greater dependence on the same agency record while the employee loses the ordinary ability to put that record before an administrative judge and develop what is missing.

The agency already has enormous control over the information at the beginning of a case. It employs the witnesses. It controls email systems, HR files, selection records, timekeeping data, accommodation records, and disciplinary histories. It conducts the investigation or hires the contractor who does. The Commission’s own precedent shows why independent oversight became part of the system in the first place. The fact that many investigations are competent is not a reason to remove the safeguard for the investigations that are not.

EEOC appellate review is an important safeguard, and the proposal gives the Commission tools to supplement a record, remand a case, or refer issues to an administrative judge. Those tools are still controlled by the Commission. The employee would be asking for permission to use procedures that are available by right today.

I am especially concerned about unrepresented federal employees. A represented complainant can identify missing evidence during the investigation, push an investigator to obtain it, build a rebuttal, and frame an appeal around a materially incomplete record. A pro se employee may not even know what comparator evidence is, what a selecting official’s notes might show, or why an inconsistency in two affidavits matters until much later. The proposal puts more pressure on that employee to get the case right at the beginning and gives fewer tools to fix the record after the fact.

There is a workable middle ground. The EEOC can eliminate mandatory counseling, enforce real deadlines, narrow excessive discovery, require early case management, and move weak cases faster. It can demand better investigations from agencies and contractors. It can give administrative judges stronger tools to control abusive discovery and decide cases promptly. What it should not do is solve its own docket problem by making employees rely more heavily on agency investigations and then telling employees whose cases require real discovery that federal court is the better place for them. That shifts cost and delay to employees, agencies, DOJ, and the judiciary instead of fixing the federal EEO process the Commission is responsible for administering.

What is still unknown

This is a proposed rule. The final rule could change substantially after public comment.

Transition rules are one of the most important open questions. The proposal says it does not intend to disturb matters that are already final, but the EEOC is specifically asking for comment on how pending complaints, hearing requests, appeals, class matters, compliance cases, and fee petitions should be handled. Employees with pending cases should not assume that a press release or summary answers that question. The transition language in any final rule will matter.

The other major unknown is how often the EEOC would actually refer appeals to administrative judges. The proposal discusses a much smaller administrative judge docket, but the real impact would depend on how the Commission applies the referral factors in practice. A discretionary safety valve can be meaningful if it is used when needed. It can also become very narrow if referrals are rare.

Federal employees can comment on the proposal

The EEOC is asking for public comment. The proposal says comments will be accepted through Regulations.gov for 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. As of August 26, 2026, the EEOC PDF still contains a placeholder instead of the exact deadline, so the docket and deadline should be confirmed once the notice is formally published.

A useful comment does not need to be a legal brief. Employees and practitioners can explain what actually happens when an investigation misses a witness, fails to collect comparator evidence, or omits internal documents. They can explain what discovery did in a real case, even if the case never went to a hearing. They can also propose narrower alternatives instead of simply saying the rule is bad.

• Preserve a right to an administrative judge when the record presents a genuine dispute of material fact, a material credibility issue, or a materially incomplete investigation.
• Preserve a defined opportunity for targeted discovery when relevant evidence is controlled by the agency and was not developed during the investigation.
• Give employees more than 21 days to add related claims that already existed at filing and more than 15 days to respond to a deficient investigative file.
• Create clear transition protection for complaints and hearing requests that are already pending when any final rule takes effect.
• Retain meaningful administrative options for systemic and classwide discrimination instead of requiring those cases to move directly to federal court.

Comment portal: Regulations.gov. Search for RIN 3046-AB46 once the docket is published. Comments are generally public, so employees should avoid including unnecessary medical information, personal identifiers, or confidential case details.

What federal employees should do right now

Keep using the current 45 day counseling deadline. The proposed 60 day direct filing rule is not in effect.

Preserve evidence early and lawfully. Keep copies of documents you are entitled to keep, identify witnesses, and write down dates while events are fresh. Do not wait for an EEO investigation to figure out where the proof may be.

Take the wording of a formal complaint seriously. That is already important under current law. It would become even more important if the proposed pleading and amendment rules are adopted.

If an investigation is underway, identify missing witnesses and documents while the investigator still has the file. The proposed rule is another reason to treat the investigation as an active part of the case rather than waiting for the Report of Investigation to arrive.

If you already have a hearing request, appeal, or other pending matter, keep following the current orders and deadlines. Wait for the final transition rules before changing course.

Frequently asked questions

Did the EEO deadline change from 45 days to 60 days?

No. The current rule still generally requires contact with an EEO counselor within 45 days. The 60 day direct filing period is only proposed.

Is the EEOC eliminating administrative judges?

No. Administrative judges would remain, but employees would lose the current right to request one after the investigation. Under the proposal, the EEOC would decide on appeal whether to refer a case or issue to an administrative judge.

Would employees still have discovery?

Only if it is authorized after a referral. The current rule gives parties the right to seek reasonable discovery under an administrative judge. The proposal says parties may not conduct discovery unless the Commission or administrative judge authorizes it, and any discovery would be limited to the referred issues.

Would the agency still investigate its own EEO complaint?

Yes. The employing agency would remain responsible for developing the investigative record. Under the proposal, that agency would also issue the first final decision on the merits.

Can the EEOC fix a bad investigation on appeal?

Possibly. The proposal would let the Commission order targeted supplementation, remand the matter, or refer a materially incomplete record to an administrative judge. The concern is that the employee would no longer have a right to move directly into the administrative judge process to develop the record.

Could an employee still go to federal court?

Yes. The proposal says statutory civil action rights would remain. Federal court, however, is a different and substantially more formal forum, and preserving a right to sue does not answer whether the administrative process itself gives employees a fair chance to develop their cases.

What happens to pending EEO cases?

That is not fully settled. The EEOC is asking for comment on transition rules. Current procedures remain in effect unless and until a final rule takes effect and says otherwise.

Official sources and further reading

• EEOC Proposed Rule, Federal Sector Equal Employment Opportunity, RIN 3046-AB46
• Current 29 C.F.R. § 1614.106, Individual complaints
• Current 29 C.F.R. § 1614.108, Investigation of complaints
• Current 29 C.F.R. § 1614.109, Hearings and discovery
• EEOC Management Directive 110, Chapter 6, development of the investigative record
• EEOC Management Directive 110, Chapter 7, hearings
• EEOC decisions discussed above: Cox v. Social Security Administration, Appeal No. 0720050055; Petersel v. U.S. Postal Service, Appeal No. 0720060075; McDaniel v. Department of Veterans Affairs, Appeal No. 0120070869; Genaro G. v. Department of Homeland Security, Appeal No. 2020004241.
• U.S. Courts: Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics 2025 | U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division: Federal Programs Branch, Employment Discrimination Litigation
• EEOC guide to discovery for unrepresented complainants

Questions about a federal employee EEO matter?

Cacciatore Legal LLC represents federal employees in EEO and related federal employment matters. We regularly handle reasonable accommodation disputes, retaliation claims, discipline tied to EEO activity, harassment cases, nonselection matters, and cases that move from the agency investigation into the EEOC hearing and appeal process.

If you are dealing with an EEO deadline, a Report of Investigation, a pending hearing request, or another federal employment issue, you can contact Cacciatore Legal through CacciatoreLegal.com.

This article provides general information and is not legal advice. The EEOC proposal discussed above is not a final rule and may change. Rules, deadlines, and transition provisions should be confirmed for the facts of any individual case.