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WORK TITLE: The Art of Fact Investigation
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.charlesgriffinllc.com/about * https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-segal-b90a6315
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:Columbia College, B.A., 1984; Yale Law School, M.S.L., 2004; Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, J.D., 2006.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Journalist, attorney, writer. CBC Television, Parliamentary Bureau producer, 1990-93; Agence France Presse, Hong Kong desk editor, 1994-95; Bloomberg News, Hong Kong reporter, 1994-95; AsiaWise.com, Hong Kong Bureau Chief, 2000; International Herald Tribune, Hong Kong Correspondent, 1996-2000; Wall Street Journal (Asia branch), finance editor, 2000-03; James Mintz Group, case manager, 2006-08; GPW, North American partner in charge and general counsel, 2008-09; Charles Griffin Intelligence, LLC, managing member, 2009–.
MEMBER:
Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club (life member and past president).
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Philip Segal earned his bachelor of arts degree in geography in 1984 and then completed his M.S.L. at Yale Law School in 2004. Two years later, he received his J.D. at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He worked as a journalist covering Hong Kong and Asia before becoming an attorney, and he has worked for CBC Television, Bloomberg News, the International Herald Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal. He founded his own firm, Charles Griffin Intelligence, LLC, in 2009.
Segal’s first book, The Art of Fact Investigation: Creative Thinking in the Age of Information Overload, was published in 2016, drawing on the author’s experience searching for data that others would prefer to keep hidden. Whether breaking a story as a journalist or taking on the opposition during a legal case, Segal has dedicated his career to detecting and assessing accurate and reliable information. The Art of Fact Investigation provides the layperson with basic investigative skills, and the author notes that searching for information is an intuitive but complex procedure. From deciding which sources to trust to understanding that data may not point to any strong conclusions, researchers must gather information and then direct further inquiries based on their findings. Researchers should be open to surprise and to pursuing new avenues.
From there, Segal explains that while public records and databases provide facts, interviews provide a human perspective. The author discusses useful subscription databases and explains how to make the most of them. For legal matters, researchers must be aware of court requirements, and Segal remarks that he has seen cases go south when the evidence the lawyers relied upon was deemed inadmissible due to the way in which it was gathered. Segal rounds out his overview with personal insights and anecdotes, and he also provides several appendices. These provide tips for conducting interviews, navigating public records, and searching financial records.
Reviews of The Art of Fact Investigation were largely positive. A Publishers Weekly correspondent found that “Segal draws interesting parallels and contrasts with modern art, cryptanalysis, and Sherlock Holmes.” A Kirkus Reviews columnist was laudatory, asserting that the volume is “a valuable resource for investigators of all sorts, from students to professionals,” as well as “a brief but comprehensive and enthusiastic guide to conducting thorough, legal investigations.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2016, review of The Art of Fact Investigation: Creative Thinking in the Age of Information Overload.
Publishers Weekly, April 11, 2016, review of The Art of Fact Investigation.
ONLINE
Charles Griffin Intelligence Web site, http://www.charlesgriffinllc.com/ (March 1, 2017), author profile.
Philip Segal
Managing Member, Charles Griffin Intelligence; investigations attorney - due diligence, asset searches, investigations
Greater New York City AreaLegal Services
Current
Charles Griffin Intelligence LLC
Previous
GPW, James Mintz Group, The Wall Street Journal
Education
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
500+
connectionsSend Philip InMailMore options
https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-segal-b90a6315
Contact Info
Posts
Published by Philip
Indian Women: Questioning Grooms and Husbands as Never Before
Indian Women: Questioning Grooms and Husbands as...
June 15, 2015
Background
Summary
My firm draws on a worldwide network of investigators who help lawyers, corporations and individuals with fact finding. We can trace assets, conduct due diligence, and locate and profile witnesses or other key individuals in the context of litigation, takeover battles, crisis management, and many other scenarios.
Read more about how I work in my book, The Art of Fact Investigation (Ignaz Press, 2016).
As a longtime financial journalist who became an attorney, this line of work presents the ideal mixture of the inquisitive digging a reporter does with the ethical, discreet, client-based service provided by lawyers. Since we dig through thousands of legal documents and work for attorneys, legal knowledge is a big plus in a field not always populated by lawyers.
Specialties: Fact investigation for lawyers, corporations or individuals.
Experience
Managing Member
Charles Griffin Intelligence LLC
May 2009 – Present (7 years 10 months)
Business intelligence firm offering due diligence, litigation support and anti-fraud services for lawyers, companies and individuals.
(Open)2 courses
The Art of Fact Investigation (Ignaz 2016)
The Art of Fact Investigation (Ignaz 2016)
North American Partner in Charge and General Counsel
GPW
July 2008 – April 2009 (10 months)
London-based business intelligence firm.
Case Manager
James Mintz Group
July 2006 – July 2008 (2 years 1 month)
Finance Editor, Asian Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
December 2000 – January 2003 (2 years 2 months)
Ran finance coverage for Asia, supervised team of six reporters and wrote the Heard in Asia column.
Hong Kong Correspondent
International Herald Tribune
June 1996 – February 2000 (3 years 9 months)
Hong Kong Bureau Chief
Asiawise.com
2000 – 2000 (less than a year)
Hong Kong reporter
Bloomberg News
July 1994 – September 1995 (1 year 3 months)
Hong Kong desk editor
Agence France Presse
1994 – 1995 (1 year)
Producer, Parliamentary Bureau
CBC Television
July 1990 – July 1993 (3 years 1 month)
Publications
The Art of Fact Investigation: Creative Thinking in the Age of Information Overload(Link)
Ignaz Press
May 1, 2016
When a Google search is not enough: For lawyers, reporters, due diligence professionals or anyone facing an ocean of facts and wondering how to proceed.
Engaging ... conversational ... never dull ... A brief but comprehensive and enthusiastic guide to conducting thorough, legal investigations."
- Kirkus Reviews
Skills
Top Skills
40Litigation
38Legal Research
34Due Diligence
31Litigation Support
21Editing
15Research
15Legal Writing
13Civil Litigation
13Intellectual Property
9Corporate Governance
Philip also knows about...
9Public Speaking
9International Law
8Commercial Litigation
8Courts
8Corporate Law
6Dispute Resolution
5Fact investigation
1East Asia
Education
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
JD, Law
2004 – 2006
Yale Law School
Yale Law School
MSL, Law
2003 – 2004
Columbia College (NY)
Columbia College (NY)
BA, Geography
1980 – 1984
St. George's
1976 – 1980
Additional Info
Advice for Contacting Philip
I am already booked through December to speak to several bar associations for CLE credit about my new book, The Art of Fact Investigation. Your bar association could benefit too from a 2-hour course that includes one hour of ethics material.
Courses
Charles Griffin Intelligence LLC
Fact Investigation
Asset searching
About the Group
1
2
3
Charles Griffin Intelligence was founded in 2009 by Philip Segal, a New York attorney and expert on complex international financial transactions. Based at historic Rockefeller Center in New York, Charles Griffin is dedicated to ethical fact-finding.
If lawyers, companies or individuals need hard-to-find facts relating to due diligence or litigation, they ask us. Unlike some investigative firms, Charles Griffin is staffed only by lawyers who have the same ethical restrictions on what they can do as our attorney clients.
Managing Member: Philip Segal
Charles Griffin is headed by Philip Segal, a New York attorney with extensive experience in corporate investigations in the U.S. for AmLaw 100 law firms and Fortune 100 companies. Segal worked previously as a case manager for the James Mintz Group in New York and as North American Partner and General Counsel for GPW, a British business intelligence firm. Prior to becoming an attorney, Segal was the Finance Editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal, and worked as a journalist in five countries over 19 years with a specialization in finance. In 2012, he was named by Lawline as one of the top 40 lawyers furthering legal education. Segal has also been a guest speaker at Columbia University on investigating complex international financing structures, and taught a seminar on Asian economics as a Freeman Scholar at the University of Indiana. His continuing legal education course, "Advanced Fact Finding" is available here. He is the author of the book, The Art of Fact Investigation: Creative Thinking in the Age of Information Overload (Ignaz Press, 2016).
Professional Associations
American Bar Association (Sections on Litigation and Family Law)
Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club (Life Member and Past President)
Education
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, JD, 2006
Yale Law School, MSL, 2004
Columbia University, BA Economic Geography, 1984
The Art Of Fact Investigation: An Interview With Philip Segal
By DAVID LAT
Aug 17, 2016 at 3:44 PM
44
SHARES
The Art of Fact InvestigationIf you’re a lawyer, odds are that you spend a significant amount of your time gathering and working with facts. It’s hard to advise your client or advocate on your client’s behalf if you don’t know the operative facts. The importance of knowing the facts is why litigators engage in document review and transactional lawyers conduct due diligence.
But doc review and due diligence aren’t the only ways for lawyers to find out facts. Attorneys can and often do work with outside investigators to get to the bottom of complex situations.
I recently had the chance to connect with lawyer and investigator Philip Segal, managing member of Charles Griffin Intelligence and the author of a new book, The Art of Fact Investigation (affiliate link). According to Kirkus Reviews, the book is “a valuable resource for investigators of all sorts, from students to professionals.”
Here’s a (lightly edited and condensed) transcript of what Segal and I discussed.
DL: Congratulations on the publication of The Art of Fact Investigation! It’s a book that many of our readers, especially lawyers and journalists, will find quite useful. But before we delve into the substance of the book, can you tell us a bit about your own path through the legal profession, and how you developed your interest (and expertise) in the art of investigation?
PS: I never wanted to practice law because I knew so many unhappy lawyers. I was a financial journalist for many years, most recently with The Wall Street Journal, and I had the chance in 2003 to do a one-year degree at Yale Law School. I went thinking I would hate it but that it would be useful. I expected that the way knowing dry accounting rules helped reporters figure out Enron, I could cover companies better (especially bankruptcy issues) knowing some law.
Then it turned out I loved law school and was persuaded that regardless of what I may have wanted to do later on, a law degree was a good thing to have. So, I plunged in and got a J.D. But then I discovered that nobody wanted a first-year associate who was 43. I wanted to be around law and so stumbled into an investigative job. It turned out to have the fun of working with litigators without the Biglaw headaches Above The Law so entertainingly writes about, plus the fact investigation that journalists need to do their jobs. Our clients are almost all other lawyers, so having the legal training to read cases and understand what our clients need is very helpful.
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DL: You talk quite a bit in the book about the problem of “information overload.” To avoid that problem that here, can you give us a “big picture” synopsis of the argument or focus of the book?
PS: In the days before computers and great mobility, most people remained close to where they grew up. Everything you may have needed to know about them was probably close to where they were as adults. Today, people move around more easily, but more importantly, information about them is in lots more places. A New Yorker at birth may have lived in five cities by the time he’s 30. He may have a bunch of companies to his name incorporated in states he’s never lived in. Those companies could have assets in still other places. Even though computers help us to find information more quickly than before, the information is elusive because it could be anywhere. The book is mostly about facing 10,000 Google results and 3,000 counties in the U.S. when you want to check someone’s background or asset profile, and you ask yourself, “Where in the World do I start?” [Hint: if some magical database could take in a Social Security Number and print out the full picture, our clients would use it and we would be out of business.] Fact investigation is as much art as science because you can’t look everywhere and are always making trade-offs about what to drill down on and what to leave behind.
Philip Segal
Philip Segal
DL: So where does one start, and how does someone navigate those trade-offs? There’s a wealth of advice in the book, but if you could give our lawyer readers some advice on how to begin, what would you say?
PS: Beyond the obligatory Google search, you have to start with the public record on any person. We start with the places that person has lived and worked, as far back as budget and time will allow us to look. People get sued and arrested all over the place (where long-arm statutes apply or where they’ve been on vacation), but mostly it happens where they live and work.
By “public record,” I mean every piece of publicly available paper you can grab: litigation, liens, securities records, corporate registrations — the works. That will give you names of companies you may not have associated with the person, and people they have opposed in litigation. Not only do you want to read about their disputes, but you want to gather names of people you can interview about the person later on if the client agrees it’s a good idea. This doesn’t mean you’ll find everything on the first pass – or indeed ever — but it’s where you have your best chance of getting the information you need.
DL: Being an investigator sounds like fun and fascinating work. Many of our readers are law students or young lawyers who are looking for career opportunities. What advice would you offer to people who want to follow in your footsteps by taking their legal training and using it to pursue careers in investigation?
PS: I would tell them if they are still in law school to do some clinical work to see how much fact investigation is required in ordinary legal practice (versus the negligible attention paid to fact gathering in academic law). Debtor-creditor rights are important to study. Then, I would suggest a good working knowledge of business and accounting. Most fights are about money, and if you can’t put yourself in the shoes of the people you are looking at, then you won’t be able to guess which of the many investigative paths you should pursue. The best investigators aren’t the rote plodders but the ones with imagination and creativity who can say to themselves, “That’s funny. In this kind of business, you would think you would see X or Y, but I’m not seeing it.” Computers are terrible at identifying what should be there but isn’t, and people who can do that are hard to find!
DL: I’m glad to hear that the computers have not (yet) taken all our jobs. Congrats again on the book, and thanks for taking the time to chat!
The Art of Fact Investigation: Creative Thinking
in the Age of Information Overload
Publishers Weekly.
263.15 (Apr. 11, 2016): p54.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Art of Fact Investigation: Creative Thinking in the Age of Information Overload
Philip Segal. Ignaz, $22.95 (130p) ISBN 9780996907910
Attorney Segal gives a primer for litigators on discovering facts that the opposition may be actively (or passively)
concealing, and specifically on finding hidden assets. This brief work is aimed mainly at civil litigators, but it has tips
for anyone who needs to gather information on anyone else. Segal draws interesting parallels and contrasts with
modern art, cryptanalysis, and Sherlock Holmes. He shows how to think outside the simple Google search, which is
often inaccurate and always incomplete, and points out that, given the constraints of time and money in any
investigation, a healthy imagination is a useful sorting tool in going through the limitless data returned by any search
these days. He offers guidance on how to find the best people to interview, with some suggestions on how to approach
them. There are cautions about legal and ethical behavior and the possible consequences of stepping out of bounds. The
appendices give suggestions on how and where to start gathering information from both free and paid services. This is a
useful book for the ultrainquisitive reader. (BookLife)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"The Art of Fact Investigation: Creative Thinking in the Age of Information Overload." Publishers Weekly, 11 Apr.
2016, p. 54. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449663019&it=r&asid=39e5572d2e0325ad74c3bdc7802242ce.
Accessed 2 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A449663019
Segal, Philip: The Art of Fact Investigation
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 1, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Segal, Philip THE ART OF FACT INVESTIGATION Ignaz Press (Indie Nonfiction) $None 4, 2 ISBN: 9780
996907910
A manual for readers interested in tracking down facts that others might prefer to keep hidden.In this debut work, Segal
draws on his decades of experience in law and journalism to provide an introduction to basic investigative techniques.
He impresses upon readers that investigation is a complex process in which researchers may be unable to draw absolute
conclusions, requiring them to make judgments or pursue new avenues. The book uses modern art as a metaphor: "Just
as we can stare forever at Picasso's work and not know the number of pears there are, we can look all we want at
databases and public records, but we may need to move on to interviewing relatives and neighbors." Segal provides a
list of commonly used subscription databases and offers strategies for maximizing their usefulness as well as advice on
using Google and other, more familiar sources. Throughout, he emphasizes the importance of following relevant laws,
particularly for investigators whose work will be used in court; he offers plenty of cautionary tales about cases that
were thrown out due to illegal informationgathering. He also includes several anecdotes from his own investigative
work, demonstrating how his team located a divorcing spouse's hidden assets, why it's necessary to explore alternate
spellings of words, and how a small investment in an interview can save thousands of dollars during a lawsuit's
discovery phase. Throughout, Segal maintains an engaging, conversational tone ("Relying only on Google is like
giving a carpenter just one toola sledge hammerand saying, 'Build me a house' "), and the text is never dull.
Appendices provide guidance for conducting interviews, locating assets, and getting to know publicrecords systems.
The result is a valuable resource for investigators of all sorts, from students to professionals. A brief but comprehensive
and enthusiastic guide to conducting thorough, legal investigations.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Segal, Philip: The Art of Fact Investigation." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2016. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA441734989&it=r&asid=ce48a7076a499fd74a54e3c5e9418c0e.
Accessed 2 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A441734989