Most law firms do not switch investigators because of one bad report. They switch when the small problems add up. For six years, this plaintiff litigation firm sent its investigation work to the same agency. The relationship was comfortable, the invoices were predictable, and on routine assignments the work was good enough.
Then the caseload grew. More trucking and premises liability cases meant witnesses scattered across several states and trial dates stacking up. In mid 2025, a senior partner asked at a case review how many open matters were waiting on the investigator. The answer was nineteen. This case study covers why the firm made the change, how Encyphir took over, and what changed in the first twelve months.
Why the firm left its old investigation agency
When the partners looked closely, the problems fell into four patterns, none of them unusual for a litigation practice that has outgrown its vendor.
A report that arrives after a discovery cutoff, or the week before a deposition, is a report the firm cannot use. Findings that are little more than database printouts leave attorneys doing the analysis themselves, with little that will stand up in front of a jury.
- Turnaround: reports averaged fourteen business days, often landing past discovery cutoffs
- Substance: address histories and lists of possible relatives instead of usable findings
- Coverage: out-of-region work went to subcontractors the firm had never met
- Communication: updates came only when an attorney called, and no one answered after hours
How Encyphir took over the caseload
Encyphir started with a free consultation and a review of the firm's open files, then took on the nineteen stalled matters first. Each went to a senior licensed investigator who owned it from intake through testimony, with a direct line to the handling attorney.
Out-of-area work stayed in house. With licensed investigators in all 50 states and every U.S. county, a witness in rural Oregon or a defendant's assets in Florida were handled by the same team, to the same standard, in the same file.
Every report was written for litigation: what was found, how it was verified, what it means for the case, and what the investigator can testify to. And for the first time, the firm's attorneys could call or text a real investigator at any hour.
What changed in twelve months
The nineteen stalled matters were cleared in five weeks. Across the first year the firm sent Encyphir 127 matters, average report turnaround fell from fourteen business days to five, and not one discovery deadline slipped while the firm waited on an investigator.
Investigators located 38 witnesses, 11 of whom the previous agency had closed as unlocatable, and Encyphir's work has since been used in 23 depositions and 6 trials without a successful challenge. The full case study tells the story of one of those witnesses, found eleven days before a commercial trucking trial.
What law firms can take from it
Litigation support investigation is only as useful as its timing and its testimony. A report that lands after the cutoff, or a witness statement nobody can authenticate, does not help the case.
The questions worth asking any investigator are simple: how fast reports arrive, who handles out-of-area work, whether reports are written for litigation, and whether someone answers the phone at night. This firm asked them after six years. The answers changed how it staffs every case.
