Background Research Can Help Uncover Unexpected Nuggets of Information

Studies by groups show that many individuals lie on their resumes.  For example, ResumeDoctor.com conducted a study of more than 1,000 resumes over a six month period and discovered that over 40 percent of the resumes contained at least one significant inaccuracy relating to dates of employment, job titles or education, and over 12 percent contained two or more errors.¹

But such deception goes beyond just resumes and often spreads to employment applications and other documents in which individuals are asked to supply information about their past. These types of documents presents an opportunity for the savvy researcher to uncover information that might damage the trustworthiness/honesty of the plaintiff—a critical aspect of many lawsuits. For example, what if the address and/or phone number of the plaintiff are identical to that of a key witness in the case—a witness who is supposed to be unbiased? Or what if plaintiff lied about her marital status? Maybe she got married when she was 16, maybe she went through a messy divorce or maybe she thought that by portraying herself as “single” she might stand a better chance of getting a job through an employment application. Or what if she lied about her criminal background?

A search like the one below turned up 350 stories from the last two years about situations in which people lied on employment applications:

Here are just a few of the quotes from those articles:

“The district’s separate investigation is to determine whether some employees deliberately lied about their criminal backgrounds on employment applications[.]”

“[S]he had lied on her employment application by indicating that she was a CAN [Certified Nursing Assistant][.]”

“The claimant lied on her employment application about her criminal background[.]”

“[T]he teen had lied on his employment application to say he was 18.”

If these are just the reported incidents, imagine how often it occurs and is not found out.

How can you take advantage of this situation? By searching public records on the LexisNexis^® services, including SmartLinx® and criminal records, to uncover possible lies or conflicts that could reflect poorly on a key party, witness or juror. And don’t forget the news. LexisNexis has hundreds of national, regional and local newspapers, as well as thousands of other sources that provide a treasure trove of facts on individuals.

Conclusion
The importance of conducting effective background research on litigants, witnesses and jurors is absolutely critical in today’s litigation. LexisNexis, through both LexisNexis^® Total Litigator and lexis.com^®, provides the necessary resources to help you perform this invaluable research.