Lighthouse AI Plus Expert Search Accelerates Internal Investigation Needs

Key Events and Outcomes

• Client initiated an internal investigation into executive misconduct, requiring high-precision document discovery and behavioral analysis.
• Multiple workstreams delivered: thematic overviews, interview prep kits, and targeted behavioral evidence.
• Lighthouse Expert Search team employed across multiple time zones enabled seamless adaptation to shifting priorities.
• The Expert Search team delivered 160 total key documents over four days in three deliveries to accelerate the time to knowledge and minimize the risk of missing critical evidence.
• Enabled counsel to prepare targeted witness interviews by surfacing behavioral evidence and operational insights.

What Was Needed

A large retailer launched an internal investigation after receiving whistleblower allegations of misconduct. The project required rapid, high-precision document discovery and behavioral analysis across a substantial volume of internal communications. The client needed thematic overviews of key communications, curated document sets to support interview preparation, and targeted behavioral insights to inform legal and internal review. All work had to be completed within a single week to enable critical witness interviews and support preparation of a summary report for outside counsel.

Process

The first step in triaging the needs related to the matter involved outside counsel conducting initial research using Lighthouse AI Search. This early facts assessment confirmed that the central concerns of the investigation were reflected in the data, and helped refine the goals and targets for a hand-off to the Lighthouse Expert Search team.

Leveraging insights from counsel’s initial use of AI Search, the Expert Search team used advanced techniques developed within Lighthouse’s proprietary systems to support Key Document Identification workflows. These methods, combined with tagging and document filtering workflows for compliance and legal review, targeted queries of linguistic patterns, indicators of tone and behavior, and other expressions of language.

In parallel, Lighthouse AI Search powered conceptual and semantic queries, surfacing nuanced patterns and sentiment indicators across a voluminous set of 300,000 documents. The combined technology and workflow approach allowed the Expert Search team to precisely identify the documents of highest importance and potential impact for the investigative team. Volume-reduction methodologies were applied to isolate the most likely relevant, non-duplicative content. Linguistic and behavioral searches focused on topics prioritized by counsel, with results delivered on a rolling basis to support interview preparation and legal review.

Throughout the project, the Expert Search team worked in close coordination with the matter team, leaning on global coverage to provide seamless support and incorporating feedback into iterative search cycles.

Expert Search Results

The Lighthouse Expert Search team delivered three waves of curated document sets totaling approximately 160 records, each tagged with Expert Search topics and annotation fields to support rapid review. This enabled highly targeted interview preparation by surfacing behavioral indicators, communication patterns, and operational insights relevant to the investigation. The outputs integrated into client workflows, including saved searches and coding layouts within the review platform.

By combining multiple information retrieval, analysis, and synthesis technologies and augmenting with human expertise, the team surfaced unique documents responsive to similar lines of inquiry—providing broader and more comprehensive information coverage in a shorter time frame than any single approach could have achieved alone.