The Myth of Online Privacy
Cardozo Law School recently hosted a multi-disciplinary conference on privacy and the Internet, "Anonymity and Identity in the Information Age." Lawyers, computer scientists and public health advocates wrestled with the challenges of protecting…
Tracking Down Spouse’s Hidden Money: Don’t Count on Taking Shortcuts
Whether one spouse hides money from the other during a portion of their marriage (and the Wall Street Journal reported this week in Veronica Dagher's article, "Hiding Money From Your Spouse Has Gotten a Lot Harder," that 58% of spouses say they…
The Hedge Fund Marketing Revolution: A Buyer’s Checklist
There are plenty of excited articles around these days about the new JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups ) Act and the effect this new law will have on the marketing of hedge funds. In brief, it’s now going to be easier for hedge funds…
Sorting and Unsorting Facts
Context matters. We know this instinctively, and yet somehow we forget. We still tend to assume that facts live in their own separate bubbles. So when we research and analyze, we warily keep our findings in separate categories—information…
Using Social Security Numbers to Root Out Employee Fraud
One of our most closely-guarded pieces of personal information, we nonetheless are obliged to divulge our Social Security numbers several times a year. You want a job? Hand it over. A client once approached us to see whether we could run a quick…
The Investigation Starts With the Client Interview
We have written extensively about the importance of good interview skills, in our blog entries "What Greg Smith and Goldman Sachs Tell Us About Investigations" and "Hiring Due Diligence Should Include an Attitude Check." Professionals…
Requesting Social Media Passwords From Potential Hires is Coercive
If it seems like every other day there is a new story about someone who was fired for something they posted on social media, that’s because there is. There seems to be no shortage of cautionary tales about people who have yet to…
What Greg Smith and Goldman Sachs Tell Us About Investigations
Former Goldman Sachs employee Greg Smith caused quite a stir when he took to the New York Times op-ed page to explain why he was leaving Goldman Sachs after 12 years. Smith, who the Times identified as a London-based executive director for Goldman…
Prevent Corporate Identity Theft: A Consumer’s Checklist
A report on National Public Radio written up here outlines the problem: legitimate businesses are increasingly subject to identity theft. Businesses find imposters are misusing their credit ratings, while there’s serious risk that people…
The Putin Plot and Investigative Timelines
We tell every new client the same thing: when we report on a person we investigate, chronology is critical. Take the New York Times story this week with the headline, “Plot to Kill Putin is Uncovered.” We rushed to read this because…
