A day in the life of an investigation analyst

Get to the office. Quick check on my outstanding investigations and see what new requests have arrived, including any urgent instructions that may have dropped in overnight from elsewhere in the world.

Grab a coffee, check through my emails and respond to any queries, or send any queries of my own regarding instructions. Hopefully responses will land later so I can complete lines of enquiry and finalise reports.

I have received a data request response. This was a request for further information about another road traffic collision that a claimant I was investigating had been involved in. I review the information and then update the solicitor working on the case.

I have an urgent instruction - I need to trace a witness. Using our intelligence systems, I conduct searches on the individual to provide the solicitor with a means to contact them and so they are able to get a witness statement from them. Sure enough, I was able to find the details necessary for the solicitor to make contact. First WIN of the day.

Coffee refill? This coffee addict says yes please…I fill up before starting my next task.

A solicitor has had hundreds of photographs disclosed to them in a case. I need to quickly and efficiently undertake metadata analysis and report on the findings. This is something I particularly enjoy doing, I find it really satisfying having to manage a load of data that in itself is just a mountain of 'stuff'. Making sense of this and producing information that is actionable and that tells the story in a concise and accurate way always leaves a sense of achievement. I will identify anomalies in the sequences of numbering (I loved maths at school), or patterns of interest arising out of the data. Do the pictures and dates confirm what was supposedly happening? My report will tell the solicitor that!

After lunch (I always take a later one), I still have a fair bit of analysis to do, as I had to break off to complete an urgent request and help a colleague unlock a difficult issue in another case. Teamwork makes the dream work.

There are hundreds of images to analyse. I complete the report. The chaos of hundreds of images is now organised in a manner that give the solicitor a full picture and timeline that they can use in defence of the claim.

I check through my work to ensure if there is anything pressing that needs looking at, as I know I am going to be out of office for a few weeks after today. I haven’t left anything that I have worked on previously, I got that out of the way, so it’s just a couple of new instructions to reallocate to my colleagues

I get my out of office email response set up and set a similar voicemail on my phone. I am attending court to monitor a criminal trial - it may run for several weeks. With my background in the police and knowledge of the criminal process, this is something I enjoy and this previous experience assists me with providing feedback, detailed notes and my own analysis of the criminal issues that come to light so that our solicitors can provide advice, to report back to the solicitor regarding on the potential impact on the civil claim.

Off home. It has not been the most 'normal day' - there are all sorts of different kinds of reports and work we do, but that’s the thing I love about being an investigation analyst at Kennedys. No two investigations are the same. We have a varied range of clients from all over the globe, which means that we are exposed to different sectors all of which have their own investigation needs.