I'm involved in a complex civil suit. My attorney wants to handle things routinely through discovery but I know the other party is evasive and lying. Can an investigation help?

Absolutely. Discovery is important because it obtains evidence in an admissible fashion. Yet, traditional discovery which may include requests for disclosure, interrogatories, admissions, depositions, and depositions by written question, often are extremely slow, expensive and burdensome. In any civil case, an investigation should be utilized in tandem with discovery to facilitate the obtaining of information in the most cost efficient and effective way. The sad reality is that a good attorney can avoid much discovery or effectively refuse to answer by objecting. While it is often possible to force the opposing party to answer, it involves expensive hearings, deposition time or other time consuming and expensive approaches. At attorney rates that often exceed $400.00 per hour, it doesn't take long for Bearden Investigative Agency, Inc.'s investigative services to look like a real bargain, particularly when the investigation shows the responses by the opposing party were not accurate. While it is often difficult to obtain documents in an admissible form through a private investigation, our on-staff investigators work constantly to try to obtain documents in the best possible form. Yet, a lawsuit is more than obtaining documents. Attorneys are great cross-examiners in the structured setting of a courtroom. They often do not do well and do not devote sufficient attention to thoroughly exploring all knowledge a witness has or prepping a witness to be favorable to the client. This is particularly true when an attorney has to go into someone's living room to talk to them. Cross-examination questions do not go over well in that environment yet that is exactly the environment that BIA's investigators are most used to dealing in. An investigation by Bearden Investigative Agency, Inc. and traditional discovery can often shave thousands off of lawsuit costs.