Uncovering Evidence in Unexpected Ways

Investigating differently than how you think it should be done

Our client’s former employee made threats against our client, a company. The company’s general counsel asked us to conduct surveillance. They wanted us to watch all her properties to see when she was coming and going.

I replied that their idea was too expensive and time consuming.

The client’s suggestion entailed many investigators stationed in different parts of the state. We found her much more efficiently by briefly going to each house to see where she parked her car. From there, we surveilled her comings and goings to confirm she did not pose a threat.

Because investigators have seen similar scenarios and found similar information many times in the past clients end up saving time and money by first brainstorming alternatives about how to go about an investigation.

Finding Millions of Dollars

A law firm asked us to look for the assets and debts of a large company that our client was in the midst of suing. The law firm wanted us to contact former employees and find anything that the media had picked up over the years.

Before embarking on this investigation, just as we were putting together a proposal and getting a basic idea of how the company operates, we identified how the company publicly discloses the vast majority of their assets and debts.

While this information was accessible without a major investigative endeavor, the law firm was not acquainted with how to find it, but we knew how because we’ve seen similar situations numerous times.

So, I called the client and instructed them how to do it themselves.

They saved thousands of dollars in hiring an investigations firm to do what was otherwise simple.

Interviews that would not work

A dispute arose about how much a large residential building was worth. A law firm came to us saying that they would like us to somehow figure out the rent each tenant was paying. Specifically, they wanted us to contact each tenant and try to convince them to tell us how much rent they pay each month.

On the face of it, this sounded like a bad idea: a client would pay a great deal of money and investigators would get very little information. These tenants had no incentive to disclose such personal information.

But after brainstorming, we figured out where this rental information was legally accessible. We told the client the most efficient process of doing this — which was to not attempt to interview the tenants of this building.

We obtained every bit of information and the client paid a small fraction of what they would have paid to pursue their original idea.

Prepare to go in a different direction, and the results might be better than expected

It’s great to have an idea of a method to get the evidence you want. But knowing your ultimate goal is even better, so investigators can use the experiences of similar goals, and get there fast.

Call for a free consultation at 415-905-0462.