As the saying goes, knowledge is power, and that’s just as true in the practice of law as it is anywhere else. Knowing who you’re up against is the only way to ensure you have the power you need in your arsenal to win cases when the stakes are high. Be it the opposing party, your key witness, or even your own potential client, having a complete picture of who you’re dealing with is crucial to formulating your best strategy and avoiding unpleasant surprises that can derail your representation.
Are you missing critical information?
Even the most complex cases between billion-dollar corporations ultimately come down to the individual players. After all, your client representatives, witnesses, and the opposing party are individuals with distinct backgrounds, assets, and connections. Locating a missing witness, or uncovering how a key witness is connected, can make or break your case. In the same way, having a thorough understanding of the opposing party (or of your own client) can be crucial to successfully taking (or defending) a deposition. One of the most reliable methods for preparing yourself for these types of tasks is through public records research.
While it’s true that public records are some of the best resources to learn about people connected to your case, sometimes locating the right information can be like finding a needle in a haystack. With so much information available, it can be hard to know where to begin, or worse yet, what information you can trust. Not to mention, how it all fits together.
Thankfully, there are resources available to help equip you with that knowledge. One of the best public records search tools out there is PeopleMap on Westlaw. With it, you can access billions of public records that have been aggregated from trusted sources. PeopleMap pulls information from sources that you might not get on other similar platforms, such as the Experian Credit Header and Equifax Utility records.
But trusted sources are not always enough — another complexity with public records searches is understanding how all of the information ties together with respect to your case. That is where PeopleMap really shines — providing unparalleled features to help you gain a deeper understanding of the person being researched. To begin with, PeopleMap aggregates information about a person into an easy to use customizable Report. These Reports not only pull together the public records about the person, but also include such valuable features as Risk Flags, a Relatives Analysis, and People and Business Associations.
Complementing the Report, PeopleMap also includes a Graphical Display which makes it easy to spot important connections and relationships at a glance. And the PeopleMap Web Analytics feature allows you to dig deeper yet for relevant information available in a person’s web history and social media activity, adding valuable insights to your research. You’re not just getting superior intelligence — you’re getting the information you need, the way you need it.
Crucial Corporate Intel
When you’re conducting a public records search — whether it’s for litigation or due diligence for a business transaction — you’re usually looking to do more than just locate or identify a person or business. You’re also looking to find assets, relationships, and other information to help you connect the dots and paint the full picture. People aren’t the only thing that can add surprises to your cases. Knowing who you’re dealing with when it comes to companies and corporations is just as important to forming your strategy and representing your clients in the best, most informed way.
Whether you’re an M&A attorney looking to conduct due diligence on potential targets, or a high-stakes litigator who needs to identify all possible counterparties to a lawsuit, you need all the business intelligence and data at your fingertips, right where you’re conducting the rest of your research. Wasting countless billable hours compiling research from disparate sources to get a complete picture of your opponent is not a viable option.
With Company Investigator on Westlaw, you can search through data on over 140 million public and private companies, both in the U.S. and internationally, to find business profiles, legal histories, regulatory and governmental filings, and more. The intuitive interface and user-friendly search functionality will help you find what you need the first time. Corporate family trees are presented graphically, saving hours of time piecing together how different companies are interrelated. Company Investigator allows you to generate customized reports that present only the legal intelligence and business information you need, leaving out the extraneous details that will only distract from the matter at hand.
We all know that due diligence doesn’t end after you complete your initial review. PeopleMap and Company Investigator make it easy for you to stay on top of everything by allowing you to set up automatic alerts that you can customize to your needs, notifying you when any new information is available.
Failing to have the full picture of the people and businesses you deal with is a sure-fire way to set yourself up for unpleasant and potentially damaging surprises. With today’s technological advances, there’s no reason to leave yourself open to surprises by information that you could easily find. Leave the tricks behind, and treat yourself to peace of mind with Westlaw’s PeopleMap and Company Investigator.
Get a free demo and sample search.
Thomson Reuters is not a consumer reporting agency and none of its services or the data contained therein constitute a “consumer report” as such term is defined in the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. sec. 1681 et seq. The data provided to you may not be used as a factor in consumer debt collection decisioning, establishing a consumer’s eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, government benefits, or housing, or for any other purpose authorized under the FCRA. By accessing one of our services, you agree not to use the service or data for any purpose authorized under the FCRA or in relation to taking an adverse action relating to a consumer application.