What do you do if you can’t find a secure place to interview people?
You probably shouldn’t interview them. There could be situations where your interview is administrative, you’re trying to learn the process or something. But if people know that you’re the interviewer and they can see and hear what you’re doing, you probably should not move forward. That can be hard.
But if also, you’re in an environment where there just isn’t a secure place to be had, you need to go off-site. A lot of our investigative interviews have happened at hotels. I’ve done some at libraries. That can be tricky because libraries, typically by protocol, have clear glass windows. They tend to be situated in the community where your investigation is happening, so that’s not always a great idea, but you may have a colleague. This neighboring law firm does personal injury law, or isn’t in your world that you can use their conference room? Those are things that you can do to bring interviews off-site.
You want to reduce the logistics involved so maybe reserve a hotel, not a direct client site, but logistically, somewhere near the client site is probably best. But at the end of the day, particularly if you’re at the sensitive parts of an investigation, your reporting party, your accused, people who are witnesses but might have pressure not to disclose, things like that, if you can’t have a secure interview, don’t do the interview then. Maybe you do it online at their house, or perhaps you do it at a hotel after hours so nobody knows they’re missing work. Still, you, to maintain the investigation’s integrity and not encourage gossip, need to ensure that you have a secure location for your interviews.
