A paralegal must have good investigative skills, including interviewing, legal research, and discovery management. These three skills are necessary for a paralegal to be successful in their career. When a paralegal uses these three skills, they prove valuable to their employer and the clients they help represent. “Interviews and investigations involve the application of critical thinking, organizational, communication, research, writing, and computer skills” (Paralegal Basic Skills Training, 2002). A paralegal must know the right questions to ask and the right way to ask questions when interviewing a client, witness or victim in the case they are working on. A paralegal should also have a good understanding of the case they are working on before conducting the interview. Knowing the case will help the paralegal know what questions to ask. Paralegals need to know the different types of witnesses, victims and clients they interview. Each interviewee has different personalities. The interviewee may be defensive, passive, manipulative, honest or dishonest. To get to the truth, a paralegal must ask certain types of questions. As noted in (Conducting Effective interviews, AICPA, 2013), there are five important types of questions to ask in an interview. Informative questions (unbiased, non-confrontational in nature), open questions (what, when, where, why, how), closed questions (yes or no answers), leading questions (contain part of the answer in the question to confirm facts already known) and admission seeking questions (questions intended to obtain admission). All these types of questions can get the right information from the interviewee middle of paper...... expert witnesses. Interviews and statements can be used in court if properly documented. The expert witness is used to support the evidence obtained. These three elements can preserve discovery and strengthen the case in court. To properly protect evidence, a paralegal will need to gather documents correctly and securely. Place important documents, photographs and other evidence in plastic. This protects evidence while remaining visible through the plastic. A paralegal should place all records and evidence in a clearly marked box and make backups and copies of all evidence collected. “Learning basic investigative techniques will make you better at your job and increase your marketability to other companies.” It's also a lot of fun. Your next accident photo or witness interview could be the factor that wins the case. (Bevans, 2004).