For Legal & Risk Leaders

A workplace violence program your Legal & Risk team can defend

In front of regulators. In front of insurers. In front of the board. In front of opposing counsel.

The Landscape

The duty of care bar is rising — and the case law is following

Plaintiffs’ attorneys now routinely ask the same questions in workplace violence cases: What was your written prevention plan? Who was trained? When? What records do you have? Increasingly, the answer determines whether the case settles in five figures or seven.

State laws like California’s SB 553 require employers to maintain a written Workplace Violence Prevention Plan, training records, and a violent incident log — with retention obligations and the right of regulators or employee representatives to request them. Federal OSHA can cite under the General Duty Clause where employers fail to address a recognized hazard.

For Legal & Risk leaders, the operative question is no longer “Do we have a program?” — it is “Can we prove it, document it, and defend it?”

What You Get

Three things that change the conversation with regulators & insurers

Documented Protocols

A written Workplace Violence Prevention Plan with hazard identification, reporting procedures, escalation paths, and response roles — aligned with the structural expectations of SB 553 and similar laws.

Audit-Ready Records

Time-stamped training completion data, violent incident logs with regulator-aligned fields, and exportable reports for internal audit, board, insurer, and litigation discovery.

A Defensible Program

A coherent story you can tell — backed by evidence — about how your organization identifies risk, intervenes proactively, and improves over time. The kind of program that changes the posture of a lawsuit.

The Cost of an Undocumented Program

What inaction actually costs

$300K+

average settlement in workplace violence civil litigation

$15K–$158K

OSHA fine range for serious and willful General Duty Clause violations

57%

of workplace violence incidents go unreported without a confidential reporting channel

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; OSHA penalty schedules (2025); peer-reviewed workplace violence underreporting research.

The Approach

Identify · Train · Document · Review

The four operational pillars regulators expect to see — built into one integrated platform.

Identify

Hazard assessment & confidential concern line

A structured way for employees and supervisors to report concerning behavior, threats, and early warning signs — with defined triage and escalation. The hazard assessment regulators expect, built in.

Train

Role-specific training that meets state expectations

Initial and refresher training paths for employees, supervisors, and frontline staff — covering threat recognition, de-escalation, reporting, and response roles. Tracked by user, date, and module.

Document

Incident logs aligned with regulatory fields

Date, time, location, persons involved, factors contributing, corrective action taken — the fields state laws expect, captured in a structured, exportable, retention-aware log.

Review

Continuous improvement evidence for boards & auditors

Periodic program review with documented findings, corrective actions, and updates — the “living document” demonstration regulators and accreditors look for.

Next Step

A 20-minute briefing tailored for your team

Walk through what defensibility looks like in practice, what your peer organizations are doing, and what your team would need to put in place to close the gap.