Verfahrenscheck · For employer-side Fachanwälte für Arbeitsrecht

The question was never whether you can terminate. It's whether the file survives eighteen months from now.

A pre-termination completeness review. Not Rechtsberatung. Not a legal opinion.

Verfahrenscheck reconstructs the employment file, tests procedural and evidentiary completeness, and produces a documented defensibility assessment before notice is delivered — reading the file the way opposing counsel and the Arbeitsgericht will. With adverse facts, witness-recollection gaps, and full disclosure on the table.

Statutes the review attacks

• §102 BetrVG
• §626 BGB
• §1 KSchG
• §1 Abs. 3 KSchG Sozialauswahl
• §168 SGB IX
• §22 AGG
• §17 MuSchG · §18 BEEG

Counsel-vendor confidentiality regime

• §43e BRAO
• §203 (1), (3), (4) StGB
• GDPR

How it works

A documented defensibility report identifying the items above.

Available for review

• Sample defensibility report
• Methodology paper
• Doctrinal mapping framework
• Data handling architecture
• Sample remediation workflow

Where terminations actually fail

The cases that go wrong rarely go wrong on the legal theory. They go wrong because the file can no longer prove, document, and explain the decision once memories fade and every document is on the table. The same handful of gaps appear repeatedly:

• §102 BetrVG completeness — a Betriebsrat hearing that omits a ground, misstates tenure, or proceeds prematurely.
• §626 Ausschlussfrist clock — the two-week window continues to run while facts are being gathered; the timeline becomes vulnerable before anyone notices.
• Abmahnung without Warnfunktion — the record exists, but the function does not.
• Sozialauswahl-Plausibilität — §1 Abs. 3 KSchG factors that appear reasonable internally and arbitrary externally.
• Verdachts- vs. Tatkündigung drift — a suspicion-based termination later defended as though it were conduct-based, without the required Anhörung.
• AGG timing correlation — a termination that follows a protected event creates exposure independent of the underlying rationale.
• Evidence hierarchy weaknesses — a narrative dependent on recollection where contemporaneous records should exist.

Verfahrenscheck reviews these as a connected process chain, not as isolated checklist items.

Adversarial replay (ERE): read it the way the other side will.

Before any report is issued, the file is replayed once through the standard reconstruction (EDE) and again through the Evidence Replay Engine (ERE) — an adversarial pass that re-runs the gates under the five attack archetypes employee counsel will mount, in collapse-priority order. Each attack produces a collapse dossier tied to the gate it attacked and the BAG warrant licensed under that gate. The verdict only stands when the EDE outcome and the ERE outcome agree (replay equivalence).

Source: attack_catalog_DE_v1.yaml, runtime_contract_DE_v1.md. The five archetypes correspond one-for-one to the attack tabs on the attack catalog.

The collapse-priority order is doctrinal, not heuristic. A void Kündigung (A1) does not need a substantive review (A4); an A2 hearing defect collapses the file before the §1 KSchG test is reached. The dossier surfaces what would collapse the file first, not what reads worst on the page.

Evidence tiering — where the narrative depends on weaker proof

The review reconstructs the procedural timeline from first incident through investigation, Abmahnung, employee response, Betriebsrat process, and delivery, and tiers the evidentiary record: contemporaneous records and system logs · witness evidence · manager recollection · undocumented conversations. Where the narrative leans on the weaker tiers, the review says so — and surfaces the arguments employee counsel are likely to make and the questions the court is likely to ask.

What comes back: a defensibility assessment, not a verdict

Verfahrenscheck does not determine whether a termination is lawful. It does not predict outcomes. It does not recommend settlement positions.

Those decisions remain legal judgments.

What it provides is a structured review of the file itself:

• Where the file is procedurally complete
• Where evidence is strong
• Where documentation is thin
• Where deadlines, sequencing, or process controls create exposure
• Where remediation remains possible

The objective is straightforward:

Find the weakness while it can still be addressed.

Two tiers, one clean line

The distinction is deliberate.

Doctrinally sourced. Inspectable like a Schriftsatz.

Every review gate is anchored to a statutory provision or established authority (KSchG, BGB, BetrVG, AGG, SGB IX, Massenentlassung requirements). Where authority cannot be verified, the review identifies the limitation rather than asserting certainty. Each finding is linked to the relevant procedural control, the supporting evidence, and the underlying authority — meant to be inspected, challenged, and verified, never merely accepted. The methodology record is available on request.

Privilege-preserving by design — mapped to the regime you already operate under

The most sensitive matters are the ones that require the most scrutiny. The architecture reflects that — and the vendor is committed to the three regimes that govern lawful counsel-vendor engagement in Germany:

• §43e BRAO — the service-provider engagement framework that permits attorneys to engage external providers without breaching attorney secrecy, where the §43e conditions are met. The intake workflow, contract, and obligations are designed to fit that frame.
• §203 (1), (3), (4) StGB — Berufsgeheimnis. Vendor personnel are bound to the professional-secrecy obligation as mitwirkende Personen under §203(3), within the §203(4) framework for service-provider arrangements; the secrecy duty travels with the file.
• GDPR — AVV (Art. 28) and DPIA (Art. 35) templates available; German/EU data handling; no runtime cloud inference; on-device local deployment available on request.

De-identified intake is generated locally: the review operates on structure, chronology, and evidentiary relationships rather than personal identity. Decisions remain human decisions — the system identifies completeness issues and evidentiary gaps; it does not resolve them.

Now onboarding a select first cohort

Verfahrenscheck is opening to a limited number of employer-side Kanzleien. The initial cohort is intentionally small to allow close calibration against live matters and direct feedback from experienced employment counsel. Senior Fachanwalt validation available on demand for matters that warrant formal legal review.

Three ways in

Methodology package — framework, sample output, data handling architecture, doctrinal mapping. Sample report — a de-identified matter end to end. Live case — one real matter, de-identified intake generated locally, defensibility assessment returned within the agreed window.