Unemployment Hearing

I had my Unemployment Hearing today. This was due to my former employer appealing my right to receive Unemployment Compensation after their dismissing me last month. And they had every right to appeal. However, I have been worrying sick about it ...what do I say? how formal is this hearing going to be? are they going to have legal representation? should I have legal representation? how in-detail must I go with my personal life with this "referee" regarding my reason for requesting time off of work? how is my former employer going to react to me at this hearing? and so many other questions rolling thru my head that kept me awake tossing and turning for countless nights! Well, I think that the hearing went in my favor...my ex-emp brought in the Attendance Policy which he was going to use to prove that my termination was due to my "abandoning my position" according to their policy. That backfired, because his "star witness" that he brought in ended up backing up my defense that I did call off in a timely manner (according to POLICY). Also, his "star witness" testified that I did have a phone conversation with my employer regarding what day and time I would return to work however the employer later told her to call me back and change the time, and I stated there was a discrepancy and the employer never called me back personally. My ex-emp's other gripe was that I did not have a doctor's excuse; HOWEVER in their own POLICY it stated that a doc's excuse may only be required AFTER 5 or more consecutive days off, which this was not! Oh and let's not forget the three documents he brought in as evidence that I had been previously warned of my attendance. Okay.. document #1 was from my 45 day eval, doc #2 was from my 90 day eval...these docs did refer to two call offs and some tardiness; however that was in the 1st 90 days, nothing in the one year and three months since! Document #3, obviously he did not examine close enough because it made no mention of my attendance AT ALL. This document even stated certain Policy Section Numbers, and NOT ONE of them had anything to do with ATTENDANCE! So, I'm feeling that they had absolutely no reason to terminate me, that they took other employees personal family emergencies to be more "valid" than mine, and they really treated me like shit! And I believe that they probably went out of that hearing feeling that THEY REALLY had gone too far! Bet they will be re-wording their Attendance Policy after this episode though! What makes me kind of sad is that after letting me go, my spot was left un-filled for quite some time (and even still may be vacant), and this HAD to have put added workload and pressure on my co-workers, and unsatisfactory service to our clients. Unnecessary, as I had only asked to take 3 and a 1/2 days off, yet another co-worker had been on vacation for two weeks, returned for one day and then immediately had to take another full week off to fly back out to her grown daughters side and hold her hand while she was evaluated in the emergency room and diagnosed as having pneumonia and sent home with antibiotics! Guess my family crisis just wasn't acceptable in society's eyes! I could have lied and said one of my bros was in a serious car crash out of town...they would have sent me flowers!