[FIND] Expertise - How to use your PI - Part 1: The Why's

This series of posts is exerpted from an article produce by Nashville private investigator, Thomas H. Humphreys for Pursuit Magazine. Thomas H. Humphreys holds the CFE designation from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. He is [FIND] Investigaitons' lead investigator.

How to best use a private investigator Part 1

If you're a busy attorney, and you've never considered hiring a private investigator, you're throwing away money. No matter how skilled, experienced, or efficient you are, you can't possibly get to all the work that crosses your desk. You can't do the fishing for case-making facts as thoroughly as you would like. And you can't be an expert in everything.

What if you could outsource some of that time, shoe leather, and expertise, bill for it, and say yes to a wider variety of cases? How smart would you look if you had a savvy private eye in your rolodex, a gal with a hefty rolodex of her own?

The Whys:

Outsource Work

The May 5, 2011 edition of The Economist printed a two-page story about the legal industry in America. They use Howrey (one of the world’s top 100 law firms) as an example of sea-change facing the profession. Aside from bankruptcy, securities litigation, and regulation issues, the world of 700 member law firms has been hit hard. Gone are the lucrative mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and it seems that clients are seeking, even demanding, alternatives to the ubiquitous billable hour.

One point The Economist makes: Clients are demanding “…that their lawyers pass certain routine work to cheaper contractors.”

Should lead counsel be in the field interviewing witnesses, canvasing neighborhoods, and personally vetting experts? Someone must, but these things take a lot of time and often lead to endless cul-de-sacs of evidentiary dead ends. Why not pay a professional investigator to track down hard-to-find witnesses, canvas the area, and vet experts?

Outsource Expertise

It used to be that an associate could read up on a topic and brief the partner, each being paid handsomely for the private course of study. Now, more often than not, it makes more sense to bring in a qualified expert in certain fields, pay her a flat fee or lower hourly rate, and likely be better informed in the long run.

The Economist points out that law firms can guarantee themselves work by becoming “…experts in other industries, not just areas of legal practice.” An alternative to this, The Economist points out, would be outsourcing the expertise.

That’s where professional investigators come in. An attorney can leverage expertise, an investigative firm’s collective experience, to his own benefit. A true professional investigator either maintains expertise in various areas, or maintains affiliations with industry specific experts. Either way, an adept lawyer will realize the value of knowing a professional investigator, the consummate information professional, the guy who knows a guy.

First and foremost, attorneys are experts in the law. Some lawyers also craft themselves into industry specific experts: real estate, finance, criminal defense, aviation, medical malpractice, etc. The lawyer/expert is usually a person who takes on one type of case and charges top-of-the market fees for his niche. However, for the majority in the legal profession, criminal defense work can mean anything from a criminal charge for inadvertently carrying a four-inch pocketknife through airport security (a misdemeanor in Tennessee, apparently) to first-degree murder (widely accepted as felonious activity anywhere in the country), and literally anything in between.

Experts in the law, a general defense team should be well equipped to argue legal points; but what about specific issues in obscure cases from various disciplines in which they are not schooled?

Can, or should, counsel review a real estate appraisal report for a fraud case? It seems easy enough, but what about making sure the report follows Uniform Standards of Appraisal Practice? What are the four forces that are required to create value? These are industry-specific issues in which most attorneys do not (nor should they be expected to) have any competency.

Would it be advisable for a lawyer to analyze blood spatter in a crime scene photo? Should an attorney be expected to break down a financial statement and explain in detail whether it is misleading or fraudulent?

Why not hire a professional investigator knowledgeable in that field to bring one up to speed? By delegating work to experts in various fields, counsel makes his firm look savvy, connected, and thorough.

In the end, law firms must decide on a case-by-case basis whether to add a PI to the defense team. If your client left his cheese knife in his backpack after a weekend of hiking and finds himself in the clutches of TSA and airport police, an investigator probably isn’t necessary. If, however, your client has been charged with fraud in conjunction with an eleventy-billion dollar Ponzi scheme, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to consider hiring a professional investigator. Client is a local charged with DUI, no real need for a PI. Client’s an international banking mogul charged with attempted rape, you bet a PI is one of your first calls.

Part 2: The How's will post next week.

Sleuthing Social Sites

In September, The Economist ran an article titled "Untangling the Social Web." Pursuit Magazine recently published the first of a four-part series last month called "The Power of Social Media." PI Magazine regularly addresses this topic. Everyone--investigators, creative professionals, and entrepreneurs of all kinds--aims to harness this so-called power, but few of us know quite how.

Clearly, social media is a two-edged sword, one we professional investigators can, and must, learn to wield in both directions.

An Investigative Tool

I still find it amazing that some detectives-for-hire view technology with suspicion. A recent article in our local newspaper featured a retired DEA agent-cum-PI proudly asserting, "They call it the ol' gumshoe...no amount of technology is a substitute for knocking on doors and putting in the legwork."

Really? What about when someone doesn't want to willingly cough up the information you need? The "ol' gumshoe" isn't just about putting mileage on your feet. It's a metaphor for problem solving, which means availing yourself of the very best tools--from your mind, eyes, and ears, to electronic substitutes thereof.

Case Study - Choir Boy or Criminal?

Last year we were hired to compile a profile of a man involved in a high-stakes lawsuit. "He's a choir boy,"his family told investigators. "Always doin' good. Ain't never use drugs."

Problem: strolling the subject's neighborhood and knocking on doors was a pretty unlikely way to find out any real information about him. We would've been spotted immediately as outsiders in the community and viewed with extreme suspicion. But in the virtual neighborhood of social media, it's pretty easy to assume a believable disguise and join in the conversation.

As the subject's new online acquaintance,  a whole world opened to us. Photos and comments about the subject painted a completely different picture of his personality and habits. The mythological choir boy image didn't stand up well against a photograph of the youth proudly puffing a blunt whilst flashing a gangster pose. Using connections linked to his page, we also identified a vast list of potential witnesses, uncovered other questionable activities, and unearthed at least three other social media sites portraying the young fellow's extralegal antics.

Case Study - Globetrotting Tweeter

A client hired us to locate a person who'd left the scene of a car accident. The young woman proved elusive and failed to return numerous phone calls from an attorney. The sheriff's office had given up after trying three times to serve subpoenas to her last known address.

We surmised that the demographic in question (women, mid-twenties) can scarcely evacuate their bowels these days without documenting said activities on Facebook and Twitter. It didn't take much techno-gumshoe poking around to discover her Facebook page and Twitter feed. Conveniently, the young lady enjoyed tweeting incessantly on the subject of her location and future travel plans. Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, L.A. (including her actual street address! She checked in on FourSquare.) I forwarded her Twitter handle to the client, and he had her served in California two days later...on the first try.

Observations

A typical skip trace might run a search via IRB and Tracers Info. The address would've turned up nothing except for the house her father maintained while serving five for insurance fraud. The sheriff's office didn't find her there, and neither would a social-media-phobic investigator. Our tweeting sweetheart hadn't been there in years.

Case Study - FCPA Due Diligence

One case promised to take us to exotic, sunny locales to perform clandestine shenanigans for fun and profit. Unfortunately, we were able to pull together enough information using databases, law enforcement sources, and a healthy dose of Facebook revelations to convince our client not to do business with this subject. If it weren't for social media, we'd have a lot more stamps in our passports right now, and our client would be out several grand in travel expenses.

Conclusions

I could go on and on, but you get the point. I understand that canvassing and in-person interviews are valuable tools. But to exclude new and innovative methods of analysis isn't just short sighted, it borders on crazy. New technology isn't an excuse to avoid old-school detective work. It's an opportunity to use the ol' gumshoe skills virtually, in a global neighborhood. It allows an investigator's eyes and ears to blanket the world.

Coming Soon, check out Part Two: Marketing in a Social Media Age

Investigator Skills - Facial Recognition Test

Have you ever wondered how hard it is for an investigator to remember details. It's why we make notes all day long, even when it seems that nothing of importance is happening. Details make the case. Can you pick a guy out of a line up? Do you notice faces and remember them?

This facial recognition test is cool. I ran across this little gem on the Pursuit Magazine website. Pursuit Magazine is the online journal of professional investigations, a great resource for investigators. It offers a small peek into one of the many facets of the the daily life of an investigator. Give it a try. Test your skills. See if you have what it takes to be an investigator. Click on over to the BBC here.