Lessons from RelFest Chicago for legal professionals connecting financial records with the people and decisions behind them
A suspicious payment gives you somewhere to start. It does not tell you who authorized it, what they understood, or whether the explanation in an email holds up against the records. Those questions take you directly into territory that eDiscovery professionals know well.
That connection was at the center of a session I moderated at RelFest Chicago, “Bridging the Gap Between eDiscovery and Financial Investigations Using AI,” sponsored by Sedra Solutions. Joining me were Sam Taylor of Mintz Group, James Sherer of BakerHostetler, a long-standing ACEDS member and director at large on the ACEDS NY Metro Chapter board, and Joey Marks of Morae. Their discussion offered a useful way to think about where eDiscovery expertise belongs in a financial investigation.
For attorneys, paralegals, and legal operations professionals working in banks, investment firms, and other financial companies, the relevance is immediate. An investigation may begin with a transaction, but answering the questions around it requires people who can locate records, assess their context, and connect findings across sources. Those are skills worth developing well before the next matter arrives.
Give reviewers a financial question to investigate
Sherer described a familiar review problem from the Madoff litigation: many people working through documents under time pressure, each seeing only part of the evidence. How could reviewers recognize an important detail if they had too little context to understand it? Taylor raised the related concern of a critical email being missed, marked reviewed, and effectively left behind.
That is a practical lesson for anyone managing a financial investigation. A review team needs to understand the suspected conduct and the questions the financial investigators are trying to answer. A date, account reference, or seemingly routine instruction can become significant when someone knows what to connect it to.
Consider a hypothetical investigation into payments to a vendor. A financial analyst identifies several unusual transfers. The review team can then look for the related invoices, communications about changing payment instructions, and records showing who approved the changes. Findings from that review may give the analyst a new account or time period to examine.
The useful handoff includes the source record, the reason it matters, and the question it raises. “Please look at this email” leaves the next person to reconstruct the analysis. “This email requests a new payment destination two days before the transfer” gives them something specific to test.
Find the people who can explain the records
One of the most useful observations came from Taylor’s account of identifying witnesses in the Madoff investigation. The team wanted to hear from people who had noticed warning signs and decided against investing. Those people were not necessarily the most senior individuals.
For legal teams in financial companies, that is a reason to look carefully at how work actually gets done. The person who processed an exception, questioned an instruction, or reconciled a discrepancy may have context that an executive does not. Titles alone will not identify everyone worth speaking with.
eDiscovery skills help here because communications and document histories can point to people outside the initial list of custodians. A reviewer who notices repeated questions from an operations employee may have identified an important witness. Bringing that observation to counsel can improve an interview plan and reveal additional sources to evaluate.
Sherer also emphasized that documents are only part of developing the facts. Testimony and responses to questions matter. Connecting the records before an interview allows the team to ask more precise questions, while the answers may change how those records should be understood.
Understand ordinary activity before labeling an exception
Near the end of the session, Sherer made a point that deserves more attention: investigators need to understand what was going right as well as what went wrong. Establishing the normal pattern helps explain why a particular departure matters.
That is especially useful when a legal team is examining unfamiliar financial processes. A transaction may look unusual because it involves an exception, a correction, or a timing difference. Its appearance alone does not establish misconduct.
In the hypothetical vendor matter, the team should ask how payment changes ordinarily occur. Who verifies a new destination? What records would that verification create? Does the activity under review depart from that practice, and is there a documented explanation? Those questions give reviewers a more meaningful basis for assessing the communications.
This is also where collaboration with forensic accountants and business personnel matters. eDiscovery professionals contribute evidence management and contextual analysis; financial specialists help interpret the transactions. Learning enough about each other’s work makes it easier to recognize when a finding needs another person’s expertise.
Use AI findings to test a theory
Taylor described the value of checking a theory developed from emails against the financial data. Connecting those sources can help investigators determine whether the explanation they are considering is supported by what actually happened.
AI can assist with that exploration, but the panel repeatedly returned to verification. For eDiscovery professionals, this creates a concrete role: tracing a suggested connection back to the records, checking the surrounding context, and identifying what remains unresolved.
Suppose an AI-assisted analysis links an email to a transfer. A reviewer still needs to examine whether they concern the same entity and transaction, whether the timing makes sense, and whether another communication changes the interpretation. An attractive visualization or confident summary cannot answer those questions by itself.
The team should also look deliberately for evidence that challenges its working theory. Sherer put it plainly: “Now, if it’s wrong, let’s find out.” Finding a contradiction early gives counsel an opportunity to reassess before relying on an account of events that the evidence cannot support.
Bring eDiscovery expertise into the investigation earlier
For leaders of legal departments in financial institutions, the discussion supports involving eDiscovery professionals when the investigative questions are being developed. They can help identify relevant sources and gaps, organize review around the financial questions, and maintain the connection between a finding and its supporting material.
That involvement can also improve decisions about where to spend time and money. Marks cautioned that most matters do not operate at the scale of Madoff. The task and the stakes should guide the choice of tools. A useful starting question is what uncertainty the team needs to resolve next and what information would help resolve it.
The benefits extend to preparing interviews, coordinating work across legal and investigative teams, and documenting why a theory was pursued or abandoned. For internal investigations, those same habits can help a team explain its findings to business leaders and identify questions about the process that allowed the conduct to occur. These are practical applications of the session’s lessons, even when a matter never reaches a courtroom.
For ACEDS members considering their own professional development, financial investigations offer a clear direction for applying existing skills. Build familiarity with financial records and business processes. Practice constructing a chronology that connects transactions with communications. Learn to explain both what the evidence supports and what additional information is needed.
The question I would bring back to a legal team is simple: when an unusual transaction surfaces, who connects it to the surrounding communications and follows up on the gaps? An eDiscovery professional should be part of that conversation.
