If you want a strong portfolio of attorney-clients, don’t be the private investigator they expect to see. Be much, much better.
Seneca Malone served five years for murder, until his new attorneys investigated the testimony of the one witness who reportedly saw Malone pull the trigger. After some digging, Malone’s new defense team found inconsistencies that cast serious doubt on the witness’s account. They asked for a new trial, and a Wisconsin judge granted it.
Seven months later, Malone was a free man.
Malone’s lawyers had argued that their client deserved another day in court, in part, because his previous attorney had failed to hire a private investigator—who would likely have found the information that discredited the witness. The court agreed.
Justice was served—eventually. But first, Malone wasted more than five years of his life behind bars.
What would have happened if Malone’s original attorney had hired an investigator the first time around?
A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found that Malone wasn’t alone: in hundreds of felony cases from 2010 to 2016, indigent defendants had zero investigators on their defense teams. These defendants were represented by private attorneys who accepted felony case appointments assigned by the state; many of these attorneys seldom, if ever, hired a private investigator.
On so many levels, these statistics are a tragedy.
There are many possible reasons for this. Specifically, in appointed cases in states like Wisconsin, where investigators get paid only $20 per hour, there aren’t a lot of investigators willing to work for that rate.
But I’ve found that on a more broad scale, in private civil matters, attorneys are hesitant—and many will even outright refuse—to hire private investigators.
Based on my experience, their reasons fall into a few broad categories:
Previous Experience
Unreliable. Rule-benders. Ineffective. Unresponsive. Unable to help.
That’s just a sampling of explanations attorneys have given me for why they haven’t hired an investigator. And as someone who has worked with hundreds of investigators around the world, I can vouch for many of these reasons.
[quote align=”center” color=”#999999″]Unreliable. Rule-benders. Ineffective. Unresponsive. Unable to help.[/quote]
Attorneys want an investigator whom they can rely on; who can legally and legitimately obtain information that can be provided in court; and who is productive, competent, and a domain expert as well as “super responsive.” And attorneys want a private investigator capable of helping them brainstorm possible solutions to their problems.
Attorneys don’t want a fickle, untrustworthy investigator who will give them that one piece of “great” information that’s legally useless because it was obtained through some shady source. And they don’t want a PI who will fail to answer calls, or who will simply disappear altogether.
Money
The harsh reality is that some attorneys just can’t afford to pay an investigator. Either their client can’t afford it or, as in the case mentioned above, the rate that the state pays an investigator might not be enough to keep the office lights burning.
As discussed in previous posts, rates for private investigators vary widely, from less than $75 per hour to more than $500 per hour. With the average U.S. salary at around $25 per hour, it’s not hard to see why the general public might balk at paying such fees.
Of course, if there is a lot at stake, money should be no object. But money almost always matters.
Perceived Lack of Resources
I once heard an attorney describe a private investigator as an “expensive Google search.” And I frequently hear clients ask, “What do you have access to that I can’t find on the Internet?” A client once told me that his 25-year-old paralegal was better at digging up information on social media than his private investigator was.
Recently, we worked on a fast-moving case in which our client had suspicions about the source of wealth of a potential business partner, who claimed to have more than $1 billion in cash. We hired an investigator in another state to help us dig up some court records. The investigator had 80 pages of court docket sheets that he wanted to send electronically, but he couldn’t because the scanned file would be “too big.”
Claiming that a file was too big to send might have been a good excuse in the days of AOL and dialup, but now it’s 2017. Needless to say, that investigator lost out on a few days of work.
There is a perception that private investigators are not in tune with today’s technology and resources. And in many cases, it’s warranted.
As investigators, we need to be ahead of the game, with the latest and greatest tools, training, and resources. There’s just no excuse to be “out social media’ed” by a 25-year-old paralegal or for being unable to come through for a client because you couldn’t figure out how to scan an 80-page document and send it by email. (note: In my opinion, the Fujitsu iX500 is the best scanner on the market for a small office.)
Lack of Results
I’ve received a number of calls over the years from attorneys who complained about their investigators not getting results. Of course, some investigators may lack the diligence or skills to perform well. But in many cases, I hear something like, “I paid a private investigator $3,000 to do surveillance, and they didn’t find anything.” Or “I spent thousands trying to dig up dirt on the opponent, and my investigator came up with nothing.”
I get it—investigators are judged by their results. But the simple truth is that we can’t predict results. We supply the facts and information generated from our investigations, but sometimes those “facts” don’t line up with expectations. If the person of interest doesn’t move from his or her house for three days, it’s not fair to blame the investigator. And the person the investigator is trying to dig up dirt on may just be that elusive choir boy.
While investigators can’t predict results, you can certainly tame expectations. It’s critical for an investigator to communicate effectively (over communicate!), keep promises and guarantees to themselves, conduct the investigation in stages, and budget accordingly.
Conclusion
It takes one case to change a perception, for good or for ill. If you want to win a loyal trove of attorneys who will hire you for their most challenging cases, overwhelm them with your competence, tech savvy, and communications skills. It’s really that simple.
In conjunction with the Pursuit Institute, Brian has developed a Master Class on digging up information through open sources and public records: Gathering, Analyzing and Interpreting Open Sources and Public Records.
About the Author:
Brian Willingham is a New York private investigator, Certified Fraud Examiner, and founder of Diligentia Group. To read more Willingham wisdom, check out his blog and his previous stories for PursuitMag.