The Monday After

The investigation that I have written about a few times, in earlier blogs, concerning whether or not a person lived at a specific address, has been successfully resolved. After many discussions with the plaintiff’s attorney, of what we had done, and what we could do, it was made clear that there was little or no money to finance an effective surveillance, which would have solved the problem. So, with that in mind, the plaintiffs got creative, and enlisted some help from an outside source that we were unaware of. With the information provided by the outside source I was able to make a determination, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant, did in fact reside where the plaintiff thought he did. End of case.

I have two investigations pending. Both involve people who have defrauded others and both are international in scale. Both have enough losses to justify our fees. I have answered the initial attorney’s inquiries and I am waiting to hear back from them. If I am retained, I’ll change the names and enough of the circumstances to protect the innocent without compromising the integrity of the blog.

In the meantime a few words on how investigations get started.

Investigations of any magnitude are usually initiated with correspondence. A few start by phone, mostly in emergency situations, but I am concentrating on the letter of inquiry at this point.

On the face of it, the letter of inquiry will give you what the potential client, or, in most cases, the potential client’s lawyer, thinks you need to know in order to formulate a strategy, put a cost projection in a spread sheet and predict the outcome of the case. When it comes to you, the investigator, there is no limit to parties stating their expectations. Anyway, that’s going to be a tall order considering what follows.

For those of you who are novice investigators, or those thinking about becoming private investigators, take heed.

Generally, the majority of letters of inquiry are not straightforward, and many are disingenuous. There are a lot of reasons for this; however, few of the reasons actually involve the investigation.

Most lawyers have “case plans” or “case profiles” or “boiler plate procedures” that they like to pursue for any given type of case. For the purposes of our discussion, the efficacy of these approaches is of no interest. What is germane to the issue, is, that generally speaking, I don’t fit into the scheme of things that most lawyers operate in.

So, if a lawyer disdains hiring private investigators why is he sending a letter of inquiry to a private investigator?

The answer found most often is that his client has instructed him to do so. Therefore, almost by definition, he is placed in the position of being an unwilling partner in the recruitment of investigative assistance. Therefore, in order to maintain control over his client, he may, in the initial letter, “fudge” the facts.

This is generally done by omitting significant constructs that could be case altering. In some cases these omitted constructs may significantly highlight the need for investigative assistance. That is obviously not good news for a lawyer that has deemed professional investigations unnecessary, or in the worst scenario, prejudicial.

In the alternative to omission being used as a tactic to discourage investigations, misdirection may be employed. Misdirection is employed in the hope is that I will respond to an issue brought up in the letter of inquiry that I thought was paramount, but is inconsequential or irrelevant to the core case.

When this happens, if you are ever lucky enough to have a chance to explain why your response was inexplicably unintelligible, you may candidly point out that the letter was misleading. This will not exonerate your judgment in the eyes of the client, particularly after his doubts have been reinforced by an indifferent or hostile counsel. It’s a mistake an investigator cannot afford to make.

The only way to avoid misdirection is to make a determination as to whether the letter of inquiry describes a scenario that is logical and within the scope of your experience or reading and if not, request a clarification before committing any strategy to writing.

Having said all of this it should be clear that the vast majority of lawyers disdain the practice of hiring private investigators for any purpose. Again, the reasons are unimportant. What is important is to expect that attitude to be reflected in the letter of inquiry.

As an investigator my job is to convince both the lawyer and the client that I am capable of producing information/evidence that will be substantive and inculpable for plaintiffs and ex culpable for defendants. I’m nowhere until I accomplish that.

My own personal action with regard to the two letters of inquiry I got last week was to generally look at the case, do a brief investigation, and then summarize what I think the plan to attain the investigative goals set forth should be. At this stage I don’t go into strategy. That comes much later in the negotiations when we are talking about money.

Process service has been busy over the weekend. We have some server’s who are having problems with papers that should not be problems. It’s easy to tell exactly how aggressive and knowledgeable a process server is by the problems he has. Gate guards, security guards, rent-a-cops, whatever you want to call them, are an everyday obstacle to be overcome. If a process server is thwarted by a security guard there is something wrong with the process server’s technique.

Once again, I’ve been rewarded with inquiries from people wanting to know about process serving and how to get started on a course to becoming a Sheriff Appointed or Court Certified process server. I’ve answered all the inquiries and have actually started to help a few people move down the road. It’s very mutually rewarding so far. There’s the potential to generate significant income and if you like dealing with people, it’s a great place to be.

I am now off to my Sunday meeting with process problems for the coming week.