For anyone who has ever tried to play pool, it quickly becomes obvious that the best way to get the ball in the pocket isn’t always the most direct.
If there’s another ball in the way or the angle doesn’t
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Sorting Out the Evidence – From Pristine to Lousy
Investigators are in the business of gathering evidence. Beyond gathering, there is the equally important job of analyzing. Good fact gatherers need to report on evidence but also where it comes from and how reliable it may be.
Evidence was
Taking Investigation Seriously
Most of us in the business can remember clients who call us to say something like, “We’ve done some pretty serious Googling, so you probably won’t find anything.” We had a prospective client some years ago who said exactly those
Why Your Investigator Should Have a Sense of Humor (Seriously)
In a partially hilarious, partially disturbing article this week in The Wall Street Journal, “Facebook Has No Sense of Humor,” the Editor in Chief of the satirical website The Babylon Bee related that two patently ridiculous “news” stories had
The Small Business Landlord-Tenant Wars Have Begun
The big guys have been going bankrupt, but the real carnage is yet to come:. Among America’s small businesses. Potential creditors need to get organized for the fight which appears to have been kicked off in New York this month
The Changing Face of Privacy for Investigations
We always like to say that when we find out about a person, we do so without invading their privacy. That can still mean we find out a lot of things about them that they would rather keep secret, but
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
When Databases Fail Us
There is a widespread belief among lawyers and other professionals that investigators, armed only with special proprietary databases, can solve all kinds of problems other professionals cannot.
While certain databases are a help, we often tell our clients that even
How to Improve Your On Line Security (Even if People Know Your Phone Number)
The New York Times published in interesting piece this week that was among its most popular: I Shared My Phone Number. I Learned I Shouldn’t Have.
In it, the paper’s personal tech columnist Brian X. Chen explained how much
Tracking Kim’s Mercedes: It’s All About What’s Not There
Not for the first time, the most compelling piece of information in an investigation is what isn’t there.
We’ve written often before about the failure of databases and artificial intelligence to knit together output from various databases and I discussed