# Investigations > Investigations is the discipline of producing findings that hold under scrutiny: observations kept distinct from conclusions, an unbroken chain of custody, and a path from evidence to finding that an adversary can walk without trusting the investigator. Category: Applied domains Also searched as: digital investigations, chain of custody, admissibility, e-discovery Source: Mediator Solutions — https://mediatorsolutions.io/learn/#investigations License: free to read, learn, cite, and apply, with attribution to Mediator Solutions. ## What it is A finding is only as strong as the custody behind it. Investigations applies evidence and provenance to contested questions: what was observed stays separable from what was concluded, every handling step is recorded, and the result reproduces from the evidence rather than resting on the investigator’s word. The point is a finding that survives a hostile reading, not one that merely sounds right. ## Why it matters A finding is only as strong as the custody behind it, and the test of a finding is not whether it sounds right but whether it survives a hostile reading. Investigations keeps observation separable from conclusion and records every handling step, so the path from evidence to finding can be walked by an adversary without trusting the investigator. The expensive failure is the true finding that cannot be used — the conclusion that was correct but rested on a broken chain, inadmissible not because it was wrong but because its handling could not be shown. ## When to use it - Running any investigation, audit, or review whose findings may be contested. - Capturing evidence that must later survive a hostile reading. - A finding feels right but you have not tested whether its custody holds. ## Principles - Observed records stay distinguishable from the conclusions drawn about them until reconciled. - Custody is unbroken and recorded: every handling step leaves a signed, ordered entry. - A finding reproduces from its evidence; it does not rest on the investigator being believed. - Candidate evidence stays candidate until a governing step verifies it. ## Practice 1. Separate raw observation from interpretation at the moment of capture. 2. Record each custody step — who held it, when, what changed — as an ordered, signed entry. 3. Hold candidate findings as candidate until they are independently verified. 4. Build the path from evidence to conclusion so an adversary can re-walk it. ## Where it fails - **Conclusion-first capture** — The conclusion is recorded without the separable observation behind it, so the finding cannot be reconstructed. - **Custody gap** — A handling step is unlogged, so the chain from evidence to finding has a hole an adversary exploits. - **Correct-but-inadmissible** — The finding was true but its handling cannot be shown, so it is excluded on process, not merit. ## In practice An investigator concludes fraud and writes the conclusion into the report. Defense counsel asks how the underlying records were obtained and handled, and the chain has gaps. The disciplined investigation kept observation separable from conclusion at capture, logged every handling step with source and time, and can walk the adversary from raw evidence to finding without being trusted. The conclusion survives not because it was asserted confidently but because its custody holds under attack. ## Verification An adversarial reviewer can trace each finding to its observations through an unbroken, signed custody record, and reproduce the conclusion without trusting the investigator. --- Previous: https://mediatorsolutions.io/learn/#deal-governance-in-practice Next: https://mediatorsolutions.io/learn/#government-contracting