This tool is meant to provide considerations and questions to facilitate note taking and record keeping. 

Each circumstance is unique and you should speak to a lawyer about your case.

“You can access documents that are a part of your job responsibilities, but you can’t go on ‘fishing expeditions.’ Be targeted. Use a scalpel, not a hatchet. One client downloaded an entire database and they got in trouble. Only take the information that is relevant to your case. Don’t go out of your way to document other misconduct in the company. Another client faced criminal charges for stealing his boss’ password to access damaging information.” Mary Inman, Partner at Constantine Cannon LLP

“Not keeping close, contemporaneous records of harassment and other activities is one of the biggest mistakes that whistleblowers make . . . keep this diary as straightforward as possible, leaving out any speculations, personal opinions, or animosity you may have toward your fellow workers or your situation.” Tom Devine and Tarek F. Maassarani, The Corporate Whistleblower’s Survival Guide: A Handbook for Committing the Truth (2011), p. 73

“A skeletal chronology organized around dates can be a concise, easy-to-understand summary that highlights milestones in your story. The spotlight on dates is particularly useful to identify patterns or causal relationships. Reporters, congressional staff, and lawyers alike generally appreciate a timeline to help them organize the facts of your narrative. Prepare the timeline before your initial interview.” Devine & Maassarani (2011), p. 136

“If you go to a whistleblower lawyer, they will ask you to take contemporaneous notes, much like a diary, to document the wrongdoing as it is occurring. Those notes are arguably protected because they were made at your attorney’s direction. Notes that you take in the ordinary course of your job in order to perform your job, however, are not likely to be protected.” Mary Inman, Partner at Constantine Cannon LLP

“Be extremely careful with documents that the target may claim are protected by its attorney–client privilege. While you may be entitled to have copies of those documents in your possession, refrain from providing them to your attorneys or any member of the government enforcement team. Doing so may taint both your attorneys and the government team and require that they recuse themselves from the case. If you have questions about which documents are privileged, tell your attorneys and they can hire a taint attorney to screen the documents and only provide your attorneys with those they have cleared as not privileged.” Mary Inman, Partner at Constantine Cannon LLP

Cell phone pictures and videos, as well as text conversations, can be useful sources of information, but again, don’t use a company device to record or store the evidence.

“The current best way to gather information is by taking pictures of documents or computer screens using a pseudonymous digital device” Tim Schwartz, A Public Service (2019), p. 175

“If you are unable to disclose records legally because they contain proprietary information or other intellectual property, make a list of all the documents for your attorney to seek in litigation discovery or for congressional or law enforcement investigators to subpoena for their investigations. You can discreetly “misfile” in a different folder those records that are likely to be destroyed by the company, or rename and hide computer files within the company’s network. You can then act as the mapmaker or navigator to guide law enforcement raids.” Devine and Maassarani (2011), p. 76

“Also, you should be aware of states’ recording laws, as some states require all parties to consent to be recorded, and some states do not require permission.” Ben Wizner, Director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project

→Recording Phone Calls and Conversations