The Expert Podcast

If you're in the investigative industry or even have to deal with a lot of bureaucratic investigation or legal type matters, even if you're not an attorney, highly recommend you get yourself a copy of Black's Law Dictionary. This is something that you can find, um, even if you go to a used bookstore and find an older version. This is a seventh edition; it may be a few years old. Sometimes libraries replace their editions after a few years, and you can get them cheap. I think this one, looking at the note in the top, cost 12 bucks at a used bookstore.

What does this do? It's not going to make you an attorney; you're not going to be Clarence Darrow, you're not going to be, you know, trying cases. But what it can do is, if you're working with a client as a private investigator, you can look up legal terms, you can look up different types of definitions for things, you can compare references from one type of legality to another, and it may help you communicate with your clients. It may help you communicate with your clients if they're attorneys. Again, it's not going to make you an attorney; you don't want to practice law like an attorney, but it can give you some insight and knowledge and wisdom into the field that you're adjacent to.

As a licensed private investigator, you're adjacent to legal activities all the time. You're working on files for clients, you're working on files for attorneys, you may be doing depositions, you may be testifying in court. The more you know about that world, the more you'll be able to relate and communicate to all the parties involved, whether it's consumer clients, attorneys, companies, or corporate counsel. Having that knowledge will also put you at an advantage competitively with other investigators who may not have the same level of knowledge.

You may also want to subscribe to Westlaw or LexisNexis to look at court cases to see how cases go. We also recommend, if you're a licensed investigator, to go down to your local courthouse on trial day and just sit in on some trials to see how they go. You may not have the same ability to attend every kind of case, but in most counties they have open court for civil cases. Different types of corporate lawsuits, and sometimes family law cases, are sealed or closed court, but criminal cases are open. The more you can get a sense for how clients and attorneys relate to each other in the court and what their activities are, the more you can provide insight as an investigator on how you can help in cases in the future.

So, the more that you become aware of the legal side of your industry—whether it's reading Black's Law, reading Westlaw, LexisNexis, or even spending a couple hours a month watching court cases—you'll be much more versed in dealing with victims, clients, and attorneys. Also, it'll help you with marketing; you can talk their language and relate to them on a more industry level and set yourself apart from other investigators.

If you like this video, be sure to click on a few others on our channel to see if there's other information that might be helpful to you about this same subject or maybe even other related subjects that could assist you with your resolution of your issue.