[DC 86]

[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=16598.msg195711#msg195711 date=1500570118]

You also don't hire a law firm with strong university connections to handle the investigation so as to not create any impression of bias

Wouldn't most law firms be biased towards not finding anything wrong happening at their client?  My impression was that to the extent biased investigations happen, it's mostly a "sweep things under the rug" kind of thing.

Putting my lawyer hat on for a moment, I don't have specific familiarity with this particular investigation, but in general when a client hires outside counsel to conduct an internal investigation prior to the initiation of any sort of formal litigation or prosecution against the client, the goal of the investigation is to find out as much as possible about what happened and to identify any potential sources of liability or wrongdoing in anticipation that some sort of external source of accountability (prosecutors, the threat of a lawsuit, regulators, etc.) may later seek to hold the client liable for that possible wrongdoing.

In such circumstances, the client's best interest is always for the internal investigation to be as thorough as possible. Think of it like a restaurant that hopes to pass health and fire safety code inspections. If you hire an outside inspector to check your restaurant before the real inspections, the last thing you want is for them to miss crucial violations such that when the real inspectors show up, they catch things you didn't and you get fined or get your licensed pulled and have to close up shop. If that happens, you're going to pretty unhappy with the investigator you hired. In similar fashion, Muir's goal is to figure out as much as possible about what happened, figure out what responsibility Stanford has, and take action so that they can then go to the NCAA and say, with integrity, that they've cleaned up shop.

Of course, that also means that an outside investigator's report can be really unflattering for the institution if it becomes public. If you recall, the Baylor Board of Trustees initially sought to block the release of their outside investigator's report about the athletic department's handling of the football players' assaults. Baylor wanted to get out in front of the situation, but not necessarily let the public know what it found. Eventually, given the uproar, they had no choice but to release a summary of it, and the report was extraordinarily damning. Once that happened, Briles was swiftly fired, Starr was removed as University President, and Baylor self-reported the violations to the NCAA. Thus even at a school that had a long history of covering things up, it was still in the school's interest for the internal investigation to be thorough and accurate.

In short, in the long term my sense is that a law firm risks much more by doing a poor job at an internal investigation and leaving the client exposed to liability than finding damning things and giving recommendations for how the institution can clean them up. The law firm can potentially be on the hook for malpractice, violations of legal ethics, and develop a reputation for shoddy work that will lead future clients to go elsewhere. As a result, my sense is that it would be in both Stanford's and Pillsbury's best interest for Pillsbury to conduct the most thorough investigation possible given time and resource constraints.
[/quote]
+1. The Freeh report at Penn State another recent example.

[DC 86]

[quote author=Boston Card link=topic=16598.msg195711#msg195711 date=1500570118]

You also don't hire a law firm with strong university connections to handle the investigation so as to not create any impression of bias

Wouldn't most law firms be biased towards not finding anything wrong happening at their client?  My impression was that to the extent biased investigations happen, it's mostly a "sweep things under the rug" kind of thing.

Putting my lawyer hat on for a moment, I don't have specific familiarity with this particular investigation, but in general when a client hires outside counsel to conduct an internal investigation prior to the initiation of any sort of formal litigation or prosecution against the client, the goal of the investigation is to find out as much as possible about what happened and to identify any potential sources of liability or wrongdoing in anticipation that some sort of external source of accountability (prosecutors, the threat of a lawsuit, regulators, etc.) may later seek to hold the client liable for that possible wrongdoing.

In such circumstances, the client's best interest is always for the internal investigation to be as thorough as possible. Think of it like a restaurant that hopes to pass health and fire safety code inspections. If you hire an outside inspector to check your restaurant before the real inspections, the last thing you want is for them to miss crucial violations such that when the real inspectors show up, they catch things you didn't and you get fined or get your licensed pulled and have to close up shop. If that happens, you're going to pretty unhappy with the investigator you hired. In similar fashion, Muir's goal is to figure out as much as possible about what happened, figure out what responsibility Stanford has, and take action so that they can then go to the NCAA and say, with integrity, that they've cleaned up shop.

Of course, that also means that an outside investigator's report can be really unflattering for the institution if it becomes public. If you recall, the Baylor Board of Trustees initially sought to block the release of their outside investigator's report about the athletic department's handling of the football players' assaults. Baylor wanted to get out in front of the situation, but not necessarily let the public know what it found. Eventually, given the uproar, they had no choice but to release a summary of it, and the report was extraordinarily damning. Once that happened, Briles was swiftly fired, Starr was removed as University President, and Baylor self-reported the violations to the NCAA. Thus even at a school that had a long history of covering things up, it was still in the school's interest for the internal investigation to be thorough and accurate.

In short, in the long term my sense is that a law firm risks much more by doing a poor job at an internal investigation and leaving the client exposed to liability than finding damning things and giving recommendations for how the institution can clean them up. The law firm can potentially be on the hook for malpractice, violations of legal ethics, and develop a reputation for shoddy work that will lead future clients to go elsewhere. As a result, my sense is that it would be in both Stanford's and Pillsbury's best interest for Pillsbury to conduct the most thorough investigation possible given time and resource constraints.
[/quote]
+1. The Freeh report at Penn State another recent example.