Who Is NOT a Good Referral for Our Firm? Lawbreakers!
I’m asked all the time when I meet other professionals, “Who’s a good referral for you?”
I usually answer, “Litigators are good – if you want to see if it’s worth suing, or you want to look into the people on the other side, and…
Five Questions to Ask an Investigator Before Hiring
Where do you start in deciding which investigator to hire for a sensitive job?
It should be a business of trust, just as it is when choosing someone to come up with an estate plan, to sue a former business partner, or to handle a complex…
The Ethics of Handling Stolen Data from the Dark Web
We were asked recently about the ethics and legality of Dark Web searches, increasingly part of many investigations. I realized we had never posted on this issue and it’s about time.
Since a lot of what we use from the Dark Web is stolen…
The Federal Judge Scandal – a Glimpse of What AI Can Do
I was puzzled this week at the reaction to a bomb of a story by the Wall Street Journal. The paper’s rightfully cautious lawyers allowed it to go to press and declare that 131 federal judges had broken the law by hearing cases in which they…
Can Your Investigator Interview Your Opponent’s Ex-Employees? A Good Test for Your Investigator Before You Hire
Any litigator tasking interviews of potential witnesses needs to know about the no-contact rule (ABA Model Rule 4.2)[1], which forbids talking to represented people on the other side of a case. This also goes for most current employees of the…
President’s Day Thoughts on Interviewing
In honor of President's Day (still officially known as Washington's Birthday) a few thoughts about interviewing.
There are so many more facts about ourselves that are in our heads (or the heads of people we know) than there are in databases…
That Bank Account Information Your Investigator Got? Probably a Crime
Half the time when someone calls our office about asset identification they tell us, “I need bank account information.”
When told that without a court order there is nearly no legal way to get that kind of information from a bank without…
The Bumbling Spies of Black Cube: Lawyers Beware
If you haven’t seen the amusing and disturbing piece in the Wall Street Journal this week about Black Cube, the band of former Mossad (Israeli secret service) agents, it’s worth a look.
The article explains that Black Cube’s people run…
The College Admissions Scandal: Another Teachable Moment
The college admissions scandal has been full of wonderful teachable moments – about ethics, humility, greed and corruption. Now for asset hunters there is a new nugget today: overpaying on purpose.
As the Boston Globe reported yesterday,…
Atlanta Paper Exposes Widespread Violation of Federal Law by Private Investigators and the Lawyers That Enable Them
Great work by the Atlanta Journal Constitution on an issue that’s bugged me for years: the brazen violation of federal law by investigators and the lawyers who hire them.
At issue is the Gramm Leach Bliley Act, meant to protect the confidentiality…
