Corporate investigations have been revolutionized over the past 40 years, and the rate of change is accelerating. Like many professions, investigators have adapted to changes in economic, social and legal conditions. The industry saw its most important period of transformation in the 1970s, as forward-thinking professionals (the most prominent of these was Jules Kroll) founded sophisticated firms dedicated to corporate investigations and security. These investigators, often former federal agents, prosecutors and police detectives, tackled external and internal investigations by applying the techniques they had learned in government, including cultivating sources, conducting surveillance and occasionally searching the rudimentary databases of the day. Many combined field investigations and research projects, with intelligence from different sources that come together into polished, professional reports.
The 1990s and 2000s saw two broad revolutionary types of changes that shaped the investigations industry. First, new laws, and more strict enforcement of existing ones, made the demand for investigations explode. Corporate investigators helped companies address these new mandates, often in partnership with large corporate law firms whose own lawyers were tasked with handling large internal investigations.
