Companies large and small conduct internal corporate investigations every day. These investigations can have many causes: an employee placing a call to the company hotline warning of accounting fraud, allegations of sexual harassment, a grand jury subpoena being served on the company or a whistleblower lawsuit being filed. Whatever the triggering event (and the list is virtually infinite), companies launch investigations to try to learn whether improper or illegal conduct took place, introduce remedial measures where problems exist and to get ahead of the allegations.

A primary source of evidence in the internal investigation is to interview company employees and executives. While the investigators reviewing documents, text messages and emails is certainly vital, speaking to the people involved can shed light on possible innocent explanations to the claims, put relevant documents into context and determine if conversations about key events happened but weren’t put in writing.