The Lawyers Weekly - Forensic Accounting & Fraud, 2012

ment under Lester Bird, resulting in a recovery of $12.5 million.
This one carried some personal risk. “Our office in Antigua was
actually firebombed two days after I left town one time.”
What piques Lindquist’s social conscience is that, in so many
of these cases, not only are the wrongdoers exposed, but there
is some form of financial compensation for their victims. “That
makes me feel good,” he says.

It’s also personally satisfying to see his investigations support
lawyers in arguing a successful prosecution or to help them defend
someone wrongfully accused.

“My role is to establish an effective investigation for counsel,”
he says. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a civil or criminal matter. If
a plaintiff lawyer, for example, is looking for a cause of action, he
might ask me to find out what has gone on. I do the investigation
and point out the good and bad news, so that he knows the facts
of the case and can then decide how best to plead it. The same
happens if the defendant retains me. I will look at the case to see
if there are any holes in it, to ensure the lawyer fully has all of the
information necessary to make his decision.” In one of his cases,
he adds, “the lawyer described me as ‘his secret weapon’ because I
was always working behind the scenes.”
Lindquist often starts with very little to go on. For the O’Halloran
case in Trinidad, the country’s attorney general gave him a fistful
of press clippings — that’s all he had in the way of background in-
formation. “I took those and, based on them, I built a case. I enjoy
finding the truth when the odds are against it.”
The string of successful sleuthing earned Lindquist a Lifetime
Achievement Award from the Association of Certified Forensic
Investigators of Canada in 2004.
Take the next step.
“There is no doubt that accountants have been performing in-
vestigations for quite some time and have, as well, been appear-
ing in a court of law as a witness of fact or as an expert witness
providing opinion evidence on matters pertaining to accounting,”
his presenter said, adding that it wasn’t until 1975 that “forensic
and investigative accounting” was coined. “Canadians should feel
proud of the fact that the term and discipline, which had its gen-
esis in Canada, has now spread around the world.”
Lindquist left Canada for the United States in 1993, where he
remains today. In the years since, he has hung his hat in several
firms, including Price Waterhouse and Citigate Global Intelli-
gence and Security. In 2000 he came full circle, hanging out his
own shingle once more as Lindquist Forensic Accounting Investi-
gations LLC, based just outside Washington.
“I tried to retire a few years ago, but the opportunity to work
with the NHLPA arose,” he explains. From 2007 to 2009 he was
the financial advisor for the National Hockey League Players As-
sociation on collective bargaining with the NHL. “Then, new
cases arrived and the last three years have been the busiest for me
in some time.”
Although he’s no longer a pioneer — this past decade, the dis-
cipline of forensic accounting has matured, with its own desig-
nation (certified fraud examiner) and is offered by many pro-
fessional firms—the work continues to engage Lindquist. “It’s
fascinating and intriguing to play at a high level in the world of
the unknown. When you get a new case, you have no idea whom
you will meet, what you will be asked to do, what will happen.
And, when you can do this within a foreign culture, it doesn’t get
any better than that.”