What do I do if somebody challenges my process? There are parts of my process that are not moveable. I’m not willing to do an investigation if parts of my process are altered. Those are the parts that eliminate bias, that are fair, that are thorough, that are high quality, things like that. Sometimes a client that I am working for has their own procedures. It’s important that investigation to investigation things be done the same. Now, if I’m getting called in, it’s because something is not being handled by internal investigators, and so there can be reasons to just do things differently with outside investigators than you would do with internal investigators. That being said, if the client says, “We always record. We need you to record.” I will adopt that practice as my own, but otherwise, I always do everything exactly the same because if somebody does challenge my process in court, or in pre-litigation, or even during the investigative process, I can say, “I do this the same in every single interview. All the time, I say the same words, I give the same admonishments, I handle rebuttals the same way, and I conclude investigations the same way, include interviews the same way even, and so if you think that it hasn’t worked, I need to understand why you think it’s not going to work because it’s worked for me for 17 years. Why do you think it won’t work here?” Also, if I’m going to be held accountable for having done something different, I need to understand why it is you think it needs to be done differently in this case so that when I’m on the stand, I can explain that. Basically, when people challenge my process, I try to stick to it because it is such a great defense for me and for my clients if I use the same procedures investigation to investigation.
