Our Services

There’s a world of information between what turns up in a casual Internet search and what is turned over in formal discovery. We have deep experience navigating this world, developing unimpeachable information from public records and open source and human intelligence to maximize opportunities, reduce risk, resolve problems, and prevail at trial.

We provide litigation support, due diligence, and business intelligence services for the legal and business communities, including:

  • Rigorous, transparent, ethical fact-finding through public records research and witness interviews, providing clarity and context for legal strategies and decisions

  • Sophisticated analysis of information and intelligence for its relevance, value, and actionability, based on more than twenty years experience

  • Expert records investigations, including in electronic databases, OSINT, and electronic and physical public records in the US and internationally

  • Witness identification, location, and interviews, including obtaining sworn statements to formalize investigative findings and for use in court proceedings

  • Historical investigations, including unearthing long-buried documentary evidence from government and personal archives

  • Due diligence investigations in anticipation of mergers, acquisitions, or contract decisions.

We create bespoke investigations according to a client’s needs to bring clarity to the pressing matters at hand. We always operate within all legal guidelines and laws including those protecting the privacy of personal and financial information.

The Strengths of Our Practice:

We always operate ethically, transparently, and in full compliance of all legal rules and guidelines.
The admissibility and utility of evidence is always our guide, and we ensure that all our actions are within both the letter and the spirit of the law.

We bring value.
Our work is cost effective. Whether before filing suit, in the course of discovery, or during long-term litigation, we work closely to provide critical strategic information when it is most needed, at significantly lower billing rates than in-house law firm personnel. One long-time client, CFO of a multi-billion-dollar international corporation, has told us, “Utilizing McGarrahan Investigations services before formally filing suit has assisted us in reducing the overall cost of litigation, and often resulted in expedited settlements in our favor. In other actions, their investigative work supported legal counsel in such a way that the company settled multiple cases with a combined financial benefit of well over $100 million.”

We are a small boutique agency by design.
We develop lasting relationships with our clients, built on trust and based on results. Cases are not outsourced to operatives, they are handled by our principals, who are always available for consultation. We are conscientious and responsive, nimble and creative, drawing on our deep experience to build bespoke, efficient, and effective investigations specifically tailored to our clients’ budgets, timelines, and strategies.

We go deeper.
Many people seem to think a comprehensive investigation can be done by anyone with Internet access and an OSINT certificate. Our 20+ years experience has taught us to go far beyond simple online searches, seeking out and finding source documents in courts, regulatory agencies, social media, Internet resources, and electronic and physical archives, and identifying and skilfully interviewing valuable witnesses.

We excel at human intelligence.
Clients tell us that our effective and empathic interviewing skills yield unusually positive results, and our record of trial victories and substantial settlements in our clients’ favor bears this out. With humanity, transparency, and professionalism, we earn the trust of interview subjects, who then feel at ease to share key information – we have freely been given access to individuals’ personal laptops, thumb drives, videotapes, photo archives, papers, and memorabilia – and we regularly gain witnesses’ willing cooperation in the documentation of their recollections through signed, sworn statements.

We think laterally and around corners.
A detailed investigation cannot be completed against a checklist, it also requires human instinct, experience, and intuition, creative thinking, and recognition of red flags. We follow the trail of an investigation wherever it leads, rather than along a predetermined course. And we search as far and wide as is pertinent to the investigation, always following legal guidelines and counsel’s direction.

We write reports that can be understood clearly, trusted implicitly, and used confidently.
Our clients consistently tell us the clarity and readability of our reports is one of the things that sets us apart. All our information is reliably sourced to documents, never reported unverified from databases, news stories, or hearsay. We insist on total accuracy, and we are always conscious of the admissibility of evidence. Our reports stand up to scrutiny.

We work at direction of counsel.
We check in frequently as information is gathered to note its potential bearing on the direction of an investigation. We never make assumptions, and we work closely with counsel at every stage to shape an investigation according to a client’s needs and budget.

We get results.
In the past 20+ years, we have helped partners at Am Law 100 and other leading US law firms and businesses win tens of millions of dollars at trial, favorably settle cases, and cleanly resolve conflicts and disputes. We have consistently proven our work can give clients a decisive advantage.