Monthly Archives: August 2016

In a prior post, we wrote about why you may need an internal investigation. Once you decide an investigation is necessary – what’s next?  In this post, we will discuss who how to select an investigator.  In follow-up posts we discuss planning and conducting the investigation, and documenting and following-up on the results of the investigation. Deciding who will conduct the investigation. Generally, internal investigations are conducted by someone inside the organization or by outside counsel.  Depending on the nature of the allegation, there may also be reason to hire private investigators or other professionals in order to conduct technical reviews such as audio or video surveillance, a computer forensic search or a forensic accounting examination.  But by and large, investigations are run in-house or through counsel. An in-house investigation should be led by someone with independence.  Of course it does little good if your “independent” investigation is led by someone who is not-so-independent.  Independence is not determined by the quality of the person nominated to run the investigation, but rather the perception of independence.  Below are just a few of the considerations. Does the nominee have a stake in the outcome?  Certainly you would not appoint someone who is in the department where the misconduct occurred.  But did the nominee work in the department in the past – a former head of the department, or someone currently in the chain of command, would be perceived as benefiting by not finding systemic misconduct that may be traced back to her leadership.  If the nominee wants to…