Digging up the dirt:
by scouring the public record, deal-makers can play detective, too - Real
Deal
Marc Diener
Recently, one of my clients was asked to
sign the kind of contract that gives Holly-wood movie producers a bad name.
It was ludicrously over-reaching and filled with a genre of legalese that
was more likely to create a nuisance lawsuit than a motion picture.
Out of curiosity, I typed the producer's name into an Internet search
engine. Before you could say "I'll see you in court," I learned the producer
had sued at least one celebrity in exactly the same kind of deal! Obviously,
I had one word of advice for my client: "Run."
There is an unbelievable amount of information available in the public
record, and every day, more and more of it becomes easily accessible through
the Net. Because it's generally performed without the other side's
knowledge, this kind of background check can be a fantastic way to learn
about a person's or outfit's true character and competence.
A person's identity can be double-checked through birth certificates, death
records, marriage licenses, divorce records, voter registrations and motor
vehicle and immigration records. For this purpose, a full name, birth date
and Social Security number are your best identifiers. If someone's got
assets, there should be evidence of them in the public record-owners of real
estate, boats, planes and cars are almost always required to file something.
Besides revealing a criminal history, court records may also document
substantial judgments, tax liens, wage garnishments and notices of pending
lawsuits. Court files of your target's bankruptcy, divorce or probate
proceedings may prove a treasure trove of intimate financial details.
Filings with the SEC or analogous state agencies may contain financial data
about the top officers, directors and owners of publicly held companies. At
times, the information available on government workers and officials, or
general labor statistics, may also come in handy. And of course, there are
always basic trade directories, sales and marketing materials, Web sites and
newspapers and magazines.
You can do some of this snooping yourself, especially through the many
companies offering online access to databases such as Data-land, Docusearch
and Publicdata.com. But, a professional will probably serve you better. You
could go a variety of routes, from the private investigator, who may provide
all sorts of detective-type services, to the information broker, who's more
research-oriented and often has a degree in library science, to the public
records researcher.
The average deal-maker would sooner spend $25,000 to have a lawyer prepare
the perfect contract than $1,000 to find out whether the other side is too
crooked or incompetent to honor it.
After all, who you're dealing with is often as important as (or even more
important than) what you're dealing for. Remember these words from mystery
writer Raymond Chandler: "It is not a fragrant world."
A speaker and attorney in Los Angeles, MARC DIENER (diener@pacbell.net) is
the author of Deal Power.
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