When an internal investigation begins, the clock starts ticking immediately.
Whether the issue involves employee misconduct, fraud, intellectual property theft, regulatory concerns, or potential litigation, in-house counsel are often expected to make critical decisions before all the facts are known. At the same time, evidence may be spread across mobile devices, cloud platforms, collaboration tools, personal accounts, text messages, and other digital sources that were not part of the investigative playbook until recently.
The challenge is no longer simply determining what happened. The challenge is identifying, preserving, and analyzing all relevant evidence before it is altered, deleted, or overlooked.
As the volume and complexity of digital evidence continue to grow, these issues have become central to virtually every internal investigation. That is why Protek is honored to participate in “Internal Investigations Under Pressure: Getting It Right from Day One—Strategies, Pitfalls, and Emerging Evidence Challenges,” a featured session within the upcoming Navigating Risk CLE program hosted by Alston & Bird, CAC Specialty, and Protek for in-house counsel.
The Investigation Challenges Organizations Are Facing Today
Internal investigations have evolved dramatically over the last decade.
Communications increasingly occur through text messages, collaboration platforms, encrypted messaging applications, cloud environments, and personal devices. Employees routinely conduct business across multiple systems, creating new challenges for legal teams tasked with identifying and preserving relevant evidence. Emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, are adding yet another layer of complexity regarding what evidence exists, where it resides, and how it should be evaluated.
For legal departments, the risks are significant.
A delayed preservation effort, an overlooked data source, or an incomplete collection can affect the credibility of findings, increase costs, and create unnecessary legal exposure. In many matters, the most important evidence is not where organizations initially expect to find it.
For in-house counsel, getting an investigation right from the beginning can be the difference between a defensible outcome and a costly misstep.
Learning from the Front Lines of Digital Investigations
The panel discussion will use practical, real-world inspired scenarios to explore the most critical phases of an internal investigation, including crisis response, evidence preservation, witness interviews, mobile device forensics, third-party considerations, investigative scope, and common pitfalls that can undermine outcomes.
The session will be moderated by Protek President & CEO Keith Chval and will feature legal and investigative professionals with extensive experience helping organizations navigate high-stakes matters.
Among the panelists is Brian Tuckett, Protek’s Director of Digital Investigations & eDiscovery, who joined Protek following a distinguished career spanning more than two decades with the United States Secret Service.
As a Technical Special Agent, Brian personally led and conducted thousands of digital investigations and forensic examinations involving white-collar crimes, complex financial fraud, organized identity theft conspiracies, homicides, and national security matters. He regularly collaborated with Assistant U.S. Attorneys and state prosecutors to develop cases built on digital evidence and testified as a court-recognized expert witness on multiple occasions.
Brian brings extraordinary expertise in mobile device forensics and investigations, one of the fastest-growing and most consequential sources of evidence in modern investigations. He concluded his Secret Service career as manager of the agency’s Chicago Digital Evidence Forensics Laboratory, overseeing sophisticated forensic examinations and investigative support for complex matters.
His experience reflects a reality many organizations are facing today: the most critical evidence is often found on mobile devices, cloud platforms, collaboration tools, and other digital sources that require specialized expertise to identify, preserve, and analyze defensibly.
The Conversation Continues: AI Governance at the Top
The risk conversation doesn’t stop with the investigation. As organizations accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence, new questions are emerging for boards and C-suite leaders around oversight, liability, disclosure, and risk management.
The second session of Navigating Risk, “AI at the Top: Board and C-Suite Governance, Liability, and D&O Risk,” will examine how leadership responsibilities and expectations are evolving alongside enterprise AI adoption. Panelists will explore board-level governance structures, potential liability exposure, and the litigation and insurance implications of AI-related decisions, with a focus on practical approaches to governing AI while managing and mitigating risk.
Together, the two sessions address different but increasingly connected aspects of today’s risk environment—from getting an internal investigation right when an issue arises to helping senior leadership navigate the broader risks associated with emerging technology.
Why These Conversations Matter
Organizations today face a vastly different investigative landscape than they did just a few years ago. The proliferation of digital communications, remote work technologies, cloud-based applications, and emerging technologies has expanded both the opportunities and challenges associated with uncovering the truth.
For in-house counsel, understanding where evidence may exist and how to preserve and collect it has become an essential component of risk management, compliance, and legal strategy.
Protek is honored to contribute to this discussion and share insights drawn from decades of investigative, forensic, and eDiscovery experience. As organizations face increasingly complex digital evidence challenges, conversations like these help legal leaders stay ahead of emerging risks while building more defensible investigative processes.
We look forward to joining Alston & Bird, CAC Specialty, and fellow legal and business leaders for this important conversation on Wednesday, August 19, in Chicago.
For registration information, please contact Keith Chval kchval@protekintl.com or 630.986.8205.
#InternalInvestigations #DigitalForensics #eDiscovery #InHouseCounsel #DigitalEvidence
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