ABSTRACT
Conducting a complete inquire stage includes complete background investigations; actual contact with victims, witnesses, and other pertinent persons; expanding the investigation based upon the progressive inquiries; making recommendations to the attorney-client for further inquiries; and requests for additional information consistent with the discovery of new information and evidence. ‚e legal investigator is called upon to conduct and complete an investigation for the attorney-client, and o·en parallel investigations of the opposing party(ies). ‚is parallel investigation is the analysis of the opposing party’s investigation and all components within. ‚is may be a law enforcement investigation, insurance investigation, prosecuting attorney investigation, or opposing party in civil investigation. At times, the legal investigator may be called upon only to analyze the opposing party’s investigation. ‚e majority of all investigations are focused on this inquire stage. ‚ere are o·en three main faults found in an improperly conducted investigation, which may result in a bad prosecution or trial outcome. ‚ese are incomplete investigations, failure to follow procedures and protocols, and false information. It is important to understand these so that the legal investigator
can both look for the signs and avoid these pitfalls. One of this author’s ve tenets of a legal investigator, as found in Chapter 9, is:
‚e legal investigator will use all of his or her skills, knowledge, and resources to think both inside and outside of the box. It is from outside the box-including intuition-that sets all investigators, from private sector to journalist and law enforcement to government, apart from all others.
