Sophia E. Haynes

Deputy Chief Counsel @U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

I lead a team of talented legal professionals who perform the personnel litigation and advisory legal services for the regional offices, national cemeteries and medical centers in a multi-state legal district. Supervisory Attorney with the primary responsibility of assisting the Chief Counsel in helping clients to meet their business goals including the review of settlement agreements for complex litigation, litigation reports for both administrative and federal court litigation, and Department responses to Central Office and Congress. Provide advice and counsel to senior executives on internal investigations involving employee complaints, whistleblower claims, or workplace misconduct-Conducted a successful pilot where change management, best practices, necessary process improvements and additional avenues for Office of General Counsel and Veterans Health Administration collaboration were identified placing the Agency in a better position to minimize enterprise risk-Built a coalition of federal agencies, state agencies and the courts to establish a highly successful involuntary commitment protocol at two Georgia medical centers and an ongoing expansion to an Alabama medical center to provide in-house mental health services for veterans in crisis-Featured in a video distributed nationally to provide key points on building supervisor relationships due to significant gains as reflected in the all-employee survey-Recognized as a \"bright spot\" for employee engagement-one of four offices in all of the Office of General Counsel-Led a successful program that detailed human resources specialists within the Office of General Counsel to develop best practices and process improvements, along with specific training for human resources to assume the collective bargaining non-adverse action arbitration process for the Agency-Served on a national tiger team to assist the Department with addressing increased OSHA compliance in response to COVID-19.