Investigate legal issues
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
An agent can find, read and summarise the sources this work depends on, and it can cover far more of them than a person would ever open. What it does not do is decide which sources deserve trust, or what the findings mean for your situation.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Research and retrieval work |
| Jobs that do it | 13 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Web, data and docs, Generalist agents |
| O*NET activity | Getting Information (4.A.1.a.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 13 occupations that perform it.
- Analyze information gathered by investigation and report findings and recommendations.
- Determine the nature of code violations and actions to be taken, and issue written notices of violation, participating in enforcement hearings, as necessary.
- Investigate alleged license or permit violations.
- Identify individual or transaction targets to direct intelligence collection.
- Identify or investigate violations of natural resources, waste management, recycling, or other environmental policies.
- Monitor tapes or digital recordings to identify the source of losses.
- Collect and analyze data to detect deficient controls, duplicated effort, extravagance, fraud, or non-compliance with laws, regulations, and management policies.
- Review reports of suspected fraud to determine need for further investigation.
- Investigate child abuse or neglect cases and take authorized protective action when necessary.
- Investigate alleged parole violations, using interviews, surveillance, and search and seizure.
- Verify that the proper legal charges have been made against law offenders.
- Investigate applications for duty refunds and petition for remission or mitigation of penalties when warranted.
- Address special issues or situations, such as illegal or unauthorized use of equipment, or cases of electrical or acoustic shock.
- Investigate, evaluate, and settle claims, applying technical knowledge and human relations skills to effect fair and prompt disposal of cases and to contribute to a reduced loss ratio.
- Monitor follow-up actions in cases where violations were found, and review compliance monitoring reports.
- Investigate applications for special licenses or permits.
- Lead, or participate in, fraud investigation teams.
- Conduct prehearing and presentencing investigations and testify in court regarding offenders' backgrounds and recommended sentences and sentencing conditions.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for research and retrieval work, and what it costs.
Research is the one shape of work that needs no integration at all, so a single $20 assistant with browsing is the whole stack. Add a crawler only once you are pulling hundreds of pages on a schedule rather than reading a few.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Generalist agents
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
13 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Accountants and Auditors
- Business Continuity Planners
- Claims Adjusters, Examiners, and Investigators
- Customs and Border Protection Officers
- Environmental Compliance Inspectors
- Fraud Examiners, Investigators and Analysts
- Government Property Inspectors and Investigators
- Healthcare Social Workers
- Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers
- Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists
- Security Management Specialists
- Sustainability Specialists
- Telecommunications Equipment Installers and Repairers, Except Line Installers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Investigate criminal or legal matters”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.