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Nine ‘Secret’ Investigative Tools Every Lawyer Should Know About (2021)

(This post was originally published in May 2015 and was updated in March 2021.)

Many people working in the private investigation business share a trait: They hoard their trade “secrets.”

I guess it’s pretty common in most businesses.

I assume they think they might lose their edge if they gave them away.

The truth is that most trade secrets are not really secrets at all. As one of the great 17th-century playwrights, Jean Racine, so eloquently put it, “There are no secrets that time does not reveal.”

So, before time reveals every investigator’s secrets, I’ll reveal a few. Here are nine investigative tools that every lawyer should know about.

TLOxp

Who is this person? Where do they live? Are there any criminal records against the person? How do I get an address and a telephone number?

These are just some of the core questions that come up on a daily basis from lawyers trying to track down an individual or wanting some basic information on people.

That’s where TLOxp comes in. TLOxp for Legal Professionals is a subscription service that provides access to billions of public and proprietary records that can be used to locate people, assets and critical details such as criminal histories and phone numbers. It is an essential tool that should not be overlooked.

Seriously, it’s an absolutely indispensable resource. And if your firm is using something like TruthFinder or BeenVerified to track people down, I strongly recommend you check out TLOxp. It’s like going from a Fiat to a Mercedes.

You can thank me later.

Archive.org

The Web is a living and breathing thing. It’s constantly changing. What might be published on a website one day may be gone the next — never to be seen again. While Google may cache the most recent version of a page, it doesn’t save it forever.

That’s where the Internet Archive, aka Archive.org, comes in. Archive.org not only provides a vast digital archive of various collections, but it also keeps an archive of the Web, with over 150 billion page captures.

Archive.org’s Wayback Machine can be used to see what previous versions of websites looked like or to visit websites that no longer exist. This can come in handy if you ever need to show that a website was publishing copyrighted materials, identify former executives of a company or gather information about a website that has been taken down.

They have archived 475 billion web pages. I am no accountant, but that’s a lot.

Most people know a little about its archiving of web pages, but did you know that Archive.org has also digitized 28 million books and texts and 14 million audio recordings like radio broadcasts, and you can search the closed captions of 2 million television news shows back to 2009?

LexisNexis/Westlaw

You’re probably saying to yourself, “Every first-year law student knows about LexisNexis and Westlaw.”

It’s true.

LexisNexis and Westlaw are essential tools for every lawyer, especially when it comes to researching case law.

What many lawyers don’t know, however, is that they also have some of the largest repositories of public and proprietary information on people and businesses. Most law firms don’t subscribe to the public records portion of the LexisNexis and Westlaw databases because it’s pretty cost-prohibitive if you’re not using them on a daily basis.

In addition to their vast repository of public records on matters such as criminal histories, civil litigation, property records and other public records, these databases represent two of the single largest collections of historical news.

DomainTools

With a little know-how and in about 18 minutes, anyone can set up a website and start publishing just about anything. But getting a handle on the individuals who are behind a website can be challenging. The simplest way is to look in the Whois.net directory to see who the current registrant/administrator is. The directory can provide a wealth of information, such as the email address and contact information for the person who is behind the website.

However, it’s usually not that easy. Many Most websites are now set up with a private or proxy domain registration, especially when the registrant is trying to hide acts of wrongdoing. While you may need to jump through enormous legal hoops to uncover the site owner’s identity, there may be an easier way.

Although the Whois directory will give you the current registrant, DomainTools will give you the entire registration history for the domain going back many years. So if the domain was owned by an individual and then transferred into a proxy service, you just might have struck gold.

Since 2018, a number of privacy laws have been passed with a lot of fancy acronyms, including the CCPA and the GDPR. The bottom line is that domain information is disappearing, but as of this moment, you can still get some good decent info. 

Bonus: Alternatively, you can check out ViewDNS.info, which is a totally free option. It’s not nearly as robust, but if you want a quick, down-and-dirty way to search for a domain by a name or email address, you can check that out. 

Skopenow

The fire hose of information available via open sources and social media has expanded rapidly over the past few years. There is so much information, it’s hard to impossible to easily collect, organize and digest all of it.

That’s where Skopenow comes in.

Skopenow is a fee-based service that offers information on an individual’s social profiles, blog posts, comments, social media posts, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, court records, family members, usernames, web sightings, pictures, screenshots and timestamps, as well as an alternative name (nickname) analysis.

Running a report from Skopenow can help you connect information using any number of data points that a layperson may fail to identify or connect.

Google

I know what you are thinking. Google is so popular it’s a verb.

But most people don’t use Google to its full potential.

For example, if you are searching for information on someone, there are at least five ways to search their name:

“John Doe” – The quote marks tell Google to search the exact phrase.

“John” “Doe” – This may seem repetitive of the above search, but the above results won’t provide results with John William Doe or John W. Doe. Searching with each word in quotes will return any results containing the two quoted words or phrases.

“Doe, John” – In some cases, the name may appear last name, first name.

“J. Doe” or “Doe, J.” – This will capture cases in which the first initial, last name format is used.

“John * Doe” – An asterisk is like using a wildcard, so this will produce results that contain, for example, John Michael Doe.

There are dozens of other advanced operators. A few of my favorites are:

“John Doe” (attack OR charge OR violate OR indict OR insult OR slander OR molest OR assault OR force OR abuse OR attack OR strike OR invasion OR assail) – This is a quick, down-and-dirty negative search string to see whether there is anything really bad out there on John Doe.

site:upenn.edu “john doe” – This search string will specifically search, for example, the University of Pennsylvania’s website to determine whether the name “John Doe” has appeared anywhere on it.

Filetype:pdf “John Doe” – This will return results of the name “John Doe” appearing in any PDF files.

Dig deeper: 6 Google Tricks That Will Turn You Into an Internet Detective and 8 Google Search Tricks Every Attorney Should Know

Newspapers.com

If you are looking for current or recent news, Googling, LexisNexis, Westlaw, Bloomberg, Factiva or subscriptions to local news websites are your best bet.

But if you want some historical information, like from the 1980s or before, Newspapers.com is the way to go.

Newspapers.com is a subscription-based service that contains information from over 20,000 newspapers dating back to the 1700s. It also reportedly adds millions of additional pages each month. This is a great source for finding information that may not have made its way to Internet search engines.

PACER

If a client asks me to do a quick, down-and-dirty background check on someone, one of the first places I always go is PACER.

As you probably know, PACER is a free public service that allows users access to a comprehensive index of docket information from all United States district, appellate and bankruptcy courts. All available court filings are also accessible through the site for a small fee.

There are a few reasons that it’s one of the first databases I use:

  1. It’s quick and really cheap;
  2. It’s comprehensive in that it contains almost every single federal court (I think it’s missing a few) in the country dating back at least 15 years, sometimes much longer;
  3. Many state courts don’t have copies of legal filings online, but PACER does, so you can quickly get the gist of a proceeding or disposition;
  4. Bankruptcy records can prove to be a gold mine of information.

Judy Records

Judy Records is a relatively new public online service that reports being the largest court-related search engine in the United States, consisting of dockets and opinions from 481 million court cases.

Yes, you read that right — 481 million court cases!

The best thing about Judy Records is that it is free of charge.

Keep in mind that it’s got some serious limitations. Don’t for one second think that it’s comprehensive; but if you are looking for some quick results, this is a good starting point.

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8 Google Search Tricks Every Attorney Should Know

There are literally dozens of advanced Google tricks, but below we have put together a list of Google tricks that every attorney should know.

Google is an amazingly valuable tool, but most people use only about 1% of its capabilities.

Some of these tricks might be familiar to you; others may not. But the magic starts happening when you start combining these advanced searches to form some really complex searches.

So, without further ado, here are some tricks to get more out of your Googling.

1) Exact phrase

Of all the advanced search tips, this is the one almost everyone knows, and it’s easily the most useful query. Enclosing a search phrase in double quotes will return only results with the exact phrase you are looking for. This is especially useful when conducting searches on individuals such as witnesses, plaintiffs or defendants who have a common name.

If you Google a person’s name without the quotes, Google assumes that you want the words to be close together, but it doesn’t force the words to be together, which would give you more pointed results.

But the quotes can be used for more than just searching for a name. For example, if you are trying to confirm that Brian Willingham attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, you can search:

“brian willingham” “amherst”

Here is an insider tip that you might not have known: If you really want to dig into a person’s background, there are six ways you should be searching a person’s name.

For example, if you wanted to dig up information on me, Brian Willingham, the author of this article, here are six ways I would be doing it:

“brian willingham”

“brian” “willingham”

“willingham, brian”

“B. Willingham”

“Willingham, B.”

“brian * willingham”

Using all of these cases allows for the possibility of the name appearing in multiple ways: together; separated; last name, first name; first initial, last name; last name, first initial; or with a name in between (like a middle name).

This may seem repetitive, tedious and duplicative, but it’s not.

If you do the searches above, you will get different results each time.

Some of which are pretty revealing ;)

2) Excluded words

Let’s say you are trying to find information about some guy named Brian Willingham, the private investigator based in New York. But some quick Google searches reveal that there are a couple of other pretty prominent Brian Willinghams, like the guy who wrote “Soul of a Black Cop,” who is a former Michigan police officer, or the Brian Willingham from San Francisco who is a real estate agent and was in the news several years ago because his husband was about to be deported.

If you wanted to filter Google to avoid these results, you could use a hyphen (functioning as a minus sign) to exclude words from your search:

“brian willingham” -“soul of a black cop”

Or

“brian willingham” -“deportation”

Or, if you wanted to get really advanced, you could filter everything by putting it in one search string:

“brian willingham” -“soul of a black cop” -“deportation”

3) Site-specific search

The site-specific Google search allows you to search a specific website for the existence of a particular term. So instead of searching the entire Internet, you may want to home in on one website.

For example, in your research on Brian Willingham, you may want to see 1) articles that he has written for Pursuit Magazine and 2) anytime he has been mentioned on Pursuit Magazine’s website. In that case, you would search:

site:pursuitmag.com “brian willingham”

You would quickly find an author page for Brian Willingham, which provides a list of articles written by Brian Willingham.

But it also provides you with links to pages on which Brian Willingham was mentioned. 

It also provides links to comments that Brian Willingham made, which can be extraordinarily valuable.

And nearly impossible to find otherwise…

4) “OR”

The OR search is used if you are trying to search with more than one term and would like for one or both of the terms to be found. The OR must be capitalized for the search to work correctly.

So if you wanted to search multiple name variations, you would enter something like:

“brian Willingham” OR “brian * billingham”

If you wanted to get really fancy, you could put all of the name variations in one string:

“brian willingham” OR “brian” “willingham” OR “willingham, brian” OR “B. Willingham” OR “Willingham, B.” or “brian * willingham”

5) Filetype

Utilizing the filetype search, you can avoid searching web pages and isolate your research to certain types of files, such as PDFs, spreadsheets, Microsoft Word documents and others.

How can this be helpful?

You may find references in annual reports, financial statements, business plans, curricula vitae, court documents or scanned documents (yes, Google is searching for words in documents too).

“brian willingham” filetype:pdf

In one case, several years ago, we were doing a filetype search for Excel spreadsheets on a company, and we found an entire list of employees and their contact information, buried on a website.

It was an absolute gold mine of information.

6) “AROUND”

There is a “secret” Google feature called the AROUND search, where you can search for terms near each other within a certain number of words. In other words, you can force Google to have two words near each other.

So if you wanted to only find results that have Brian Willingham within 20 words of Diligentia Group, you would enter:

“brian willingham” AROUND(20) “diligentia group”

The AROUND must be capitalized, and the 20 referenced above can be any number you want.

This can be helpful in cases in which you want to narrow down lots of results.

Or in cases where you are trying to link two parties together.

For example, if you were trying to link Brian Willingham to the Bernie Madoff scandal, you might try something like this:

“madoff” AROUND(30) “brian willingham”

7) INURL

This is a search that I have been using with much greater frequency over the past several years. This will find results in which the searched word only appears in the actual URL, not in the body of the text.

This is particularly helpful for finding social media profiles. For example, if you have determined that Mr. Willingham uses the apt handle “brianwillingham” on social media, you may do something like this:

inurl:brianwillingham

Or if you have figured out that Mr. Willingham really goes by the user handle “fedora_the_explora” you would do this:

inurl:fedora_the_explora

(Legal notice: We can neither confirm nor deny that Brian Willingham has used or ever will use the handle fedora_the_explora, and we can neither confirm nor deny whether fedora_the_explora is related to the “real” Dora the Explorer.)

8) Combination

THIS is where the magic happens.

You can combine these techniques above into really advanced Google searches. In really nerdy worlds, it’s called “Google dorking” or, in less nerdy worlds, “Google hacking.”

So if you wanted to find PDF files on the Diligentia Group website:

site:diligentiagroup.com filetype:pdf

If you wanted to see whether there is anything horrible out there about our friend Brian Willingham and wanted to find some low-hanging fruit, you might do something like this:

“brian willingham” (arrest OR assault OR attack OR bribe OR corruption OR criminal OR defraud OR fraud OR illegal OR indict OR investigation OR launder OR misconduct OR misrepresent OR negligence OR violation OR sanction OR terror)

Or if you wanted to get even nerdier:

“brian willingham” AROUND(20) (arrest OR assault OR attack OR bribe OR corruption OR criminal OR defraud OR fraud OR illegal OR indict OR investigation OR launder OR misconduct OR misrepresent OR negligence OR violation OR sanction OR terror)

If you wanted to find any PDF files that contain privileged and confidential information that is not for public release, you can do this:

filetype:pdf “privileged * confidential” “not for public release”

👀

Happy Googling!

Side note: While writing this, I found out a lot about myself that I didn’t know before ;-}

Dig deeper:

➔ Google Dorks on OSINTCurio.us

➔ Smart Searching with GoogleDorking

➔ Ethical Google Hacking Course

➔ Google Dorks List and Updated Database in 2021

➔ Google Search Operators: The Complete List (42 Advanced Operators)

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Need to Hire a Private Investigator? 6 Questions to Ask Yourself

Not every person, corporation or law firm needs to hire a private investigator on a regular basis.  Realistically and thankfully, a private investigator is not someone that everyone has on speed dial.

But if a situation requires one, before you hire a private investigator, take into consideration these questions:

What is your objective?

Are you trying to find someone, collect on a judgment, determine if it’s worth suing someone or perhaps investigate a complex matter? With some cases, the specific objective may be obvious, but often clients are not sure what they really want. Having an ultimate goal or objective before you hire a private investigator can help control costs and focus the investigator in the right direction.

Do you need subject matter expertise?

Investigators often have a specialty. These include surveillance, matrimonial cases, insurance disability matters, internal fraud investigations, adoption, computer forensics, forensic accounting, litigation support, due diligence investigation and background checks.  Hiring the wrong investigator for the wrong job may doom your case from the start. Before you hire a private investigator make sure the investigator you hire has a proven track record in the area you present to them.

What do you already know?

It’s important to collect every relevant piece of written or electronic information in your possession to provide to the investigator. Also, be sure to tell them everything you know—even if it’s not written down. This insures that the investigator has the best tools to be effective and efficient so that they can hit the ground running.

How will the information be used?

Are you trying to get information for your own use or do you anticipate litigation relevant to the information?  In the first instance, it may be appropriate to deal directly with the investigator, but if there is litigation in the works, your investigator should be retained by an attorney to protect work product privilege.

What are your expectations?

We all love a good Sherlock Holmes novel or an old episode of Colombo, but it’s called fiction for a reason. Understanding what the investigator can legally, properly and ethically do will save you from unrealistic expectations and trouble down the road.

What are the risks if inquiries become known?

What if the investigator is caught digging around? If the inquiries the investigator is making are exposed, what’s the backlash?  Think this through. This is key to developing a leak proof investigative strategy to avoid embarrassment or worse.  An investigative approach depends on the sensitivity of the case—make sure you and the investigator are on the same page about technique. Is it necessary to take every precaution and be sensitive or can the investigator go in with guns blazing?

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Should you Sue? Conducting a Pre-Litigation Asset Search

A pre-litigation asset search can provide you or your client with valuable information to determine if a lawsuit is worth filing or to gain leverage in the course of negotiations prior to filing a lawsuit.

Going through litigation is expensive.  There is nothing worse than racking up tens of thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees only to find the person or company you are suing doesn’t have anything of value.  In other cases, you may be in the midst of negotiating a settlement prior to filing a lawsuit and want to see how far you can push the negotiations, or if you should cut your losses and settle.

In pre-litigation mode, attorneys don’t have the luxury of having the legal authority to access information about liquid assets such as bank accounts and investment accounts.  Attorneys need information quickly, discreetly and most importantly, legally.

What to consider?

Determining whether you should sue a person or a company has two parts – what they may own and what other potential liabilities they may have.  Of course there may be a whole host of hidden assets, but here are a few key assets and potential liabilities that can be identified quickly, discreetly and legally in a pre-litigation asset search:

Assets

Personal Assets

The most significant asset that people own is typically their home, but other assets that can be identified through open sources include motor vehicles, boats and airplanes.  Beyond the obvious assets held directly by a person, assets may also be held by a close associate, family trust, family member or shell company.  Real property assets may have also been recently transferred to other related parties or held overseas.

Business Assets

In addition to holding individual assets, assets may also be held in a corporate entity.   Identifying corporate affiliations through secretary of state filings and other research is an important step in identifying assets held by affiliated companies which may not be held by the subject directly.

Liabilities

Bankruptcy

Obviously, if the person or company has filed for bankruptcy protection, you will eventually be notified and you can file a claim in the bankruptcy proceeding.  What if you haven’t been notified yet?  If the person or company has a history of filing for bankruptcy protection, wouldn’t you want to know?

Civil Litigation

If other civil litigation has already been initiated against the person or company you are about to sue, you may be in a long line of creditors once your lawsuit has finally been settled.  It may also be a sign that you should settle fast.

Judgments/Liens

If the person or company has been subject to recent judgments and/or lien filings, this may be a sign that the company is already heading for trouble.

Final thought

Conducting a pre-litigation asset search can quickly identify assets and potential liabilities that can help you make a more informed decision about whether you should file a lawsuit or if you should cut your losses and settle prior to filing a lawsuit.

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10 Ways an Attorney Can Effectively Use a Private Investigator

An attorney may think that they do not have any need for an experienced private investigator because of the variety of skills and resources that they employ.  But have you ever found yourself staring at a computer screen and asking:

I know the answer is out there…Where do we go from here?

Although law school and career experience provide an attorney with a number of useful research techniques and litigation skill, they do have limits.

Consulting with a professional private investigator can help attorney’s to leverage your position and find creative and efficient ways to come out ahead of your adversary.

Here are 10 ways that an attorney can use a professional private investigator:

1 Locate People

It may be a witness or an heir. Perhaps it’s a former employee who can shed light on corporate misconduct. Or maybe you need to locate a witness in possession of the proverbial “smoking gun.” Whether you would like to interview, serve, or investigate someone, an investigator can help you to identify and locate the individual.

2 Locate Assets

Investigators are skilled at locating assets such as real estate, valuable property (artwork, antiques, collectibles, etc.), and vehicles (motor vehicles, aircraft, vessels, etc.). An investigator can also help attorneys to identify the location both domestic and offshore bank accounts (though the details of these assets may not necessarily be disclosed by banking institutions without court order or permission from the account holder – see our post 5 Myths: What a Private Investigator Cannot (Legally) Get.

3 Leverage for Negotiations

An investigator can pull together key sources and intelligence to inform your side during litigation, an M &A deal, internal investigation, or any other adversarial situation that can make the difference between a favorable settlement.

4 Enforce Judgments

A judgment is only useful if you are able to enforce it. An investigator can help attorneys to identify current assets and any efforts to hide or misrepresent them through the transfer to family members, friends or other parties.

5 Connect the Dots

Investigators can help you to know who is actually sitting on the other side of the table during litigation or a potential business deal. You can gain immeasurable negotiation power by identifying who is actually behind a faceless corporation or tying together undisclosed connections.

6 Predict Your Opponent’s Next Move

Through an investigation, you can learn your opponent’s history and patterns of behaviors so as to best predict how they will react under pressure. This will help you to be successful in litigation strategizing, during cross examination, or at the deal table.

7 Prep For Cross Examination

During preparation for a deposition or courtroom testimony, an investigator’s report detailing your witnesses’ weaknesses, background, and behavioral tendencies may be one of your most valuable tools. This can also be useful in identifying information against your client, so you can be prepared for what may come up during the course of the litigation.

8 Collect and review electronic evidence

Whether it is an adversarial matter or an internal investigation, investigators may be used to efficiently recover electronic files – including those that a subject believes he or she has successfully deleted. Investigators are frequently used to identify and analyze a subject’s emails, documents, or other files.

9 Trademark and Intellectual Property Monitoring

Investigators can be used to successfully police a company’s products throughout the world. Counterfeiting and improper diversion of products onto the grey market are just two of the most common areas where an investigator can provide intelligence and assistance.

10 Reconstruction

A historical reconstruction may be helpful in a number of different areas. Perhaps you need to review the history of a family to locate heirs. It could be a corporate history or a chain of title issue in a real estate matter. Whatever the issue, an investigator can help to identify and piece together long lost documents, facts and witnesses.

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