The Investigator/Attorney Relationship

Oct 28, 2016

Why should an attorney use an investigator when they have a paralegal in the office?

It’s no secret that attorneys utilize paralegals to handle many investigative related tasks. Instead of viewing it as an “either/or” situation, look at the possibilities of utilizing both investigators and paralegals and see how additional resources can help save time and return better results.

Attorney support services include: Witness locates, interviews, photographing locations, records retrieval, asset checks, backgrounds of various levels, social networking searches, cyber profiles and reports written to withstand scrutiny in court.

Can a paralegal do all of that? Yes. A paralegal’s duties reflect the attorney’s requirements and depending on the case, the requirements may be enormous.

An investigator’s skills complement and dovetail with a paralegal’s duties. While the paralegal is busy working directly with the attorney preparing the case to be presented, the investigator can be out pulling records, locating witnesses and scheduling interviews, conducting a background investigation and Social Media Investigation and creating a report compiled from the data. An investigator provides an additional resource with skills that may differ slightly or greatly from a paralegal, but the goal is still to provide the attorney with crucial documentation for their case.