What Is an Ex-Employee List (EEL)?
Plaintiff attorneys know that some of the most valuable witnesses in a case are people who used to work for the defendant. The hard part is finding them. An Ex-Employee List, or EEL, is built to solve that problem.
This post explains what an EEL is, what goes into one, and how plaintiff firms use it to move a case forward.
The short answer
An EEL is a researched list of a defendant company's former employees, focused on the job titles, locations, and time period that matter to your case. Each entry includes the person's name, job title, tenure, and an active, confirmed phone number. Stratejic Relationships developed The EEL specifically for plaintiff attorneys, and it is the core of what we do.
What's in an EEL
Names. The former employees who held relevant roles during the period you care about.
Job titles. So you can see at a glance who was a dispatcher, a charge nurse, a QA engineer, or a store manager.
Tenures. When each person worked there, so you can focus on the people who were present when it mattered.
Active confirmed phone numbers. Not a list of old numbers from a database, but numbers that have been confirmed to reach the person.
That last point matters more than it sounds. A list of names with outdated contact information sends your team into weeks of dead ends. A list with confirmed numbers lets your attorneys and investigators start talking to witnesses right away.
How an EEL is built
Every EEL starts with the case. We work with your firm to define the defendant, including any parent companies, subsidiaries, or staffing agencies that may have employed relevant people; the locations involved; the job titles most likely to hold relevant knowledge; and the time window around the incident.
From there, our research team identifies former employees who fit those criteria and locates current contact information for each one. The result is a targeted list rather than a pile of names.
Vetting: from a long list to the right witnesses
Not every former employee will have useful knowledge, and not every one will be willing to talk. Our vetting process reaches out to people on the list and narrows it to the witnesses who sit at the intersection of relevant knowledge and willingness to cooperate. That way your attorneys spend their time on the conversations most likely to help the case.
How plaintiff firms use an EEL
Early case evaluation. Learn what really happened before investing heavily in a case.
Sharper discovery. Former employees can tell you which documents exist, what they're called, and who created them.
Choosing deponents. Identify which current managers actually made the decisions at issue.
Trial witnesses. Find credible people who can testify about notice, policies, and practices from firsthand experience.
Settlement leverage. A defendant that knows you've found its former staff tends to take the case more seriously.
Case types where EELs make a difference
EELs are useful any time the inside story of a company matters. Plaintiff firms use them in nursing home neglect, trucking, negligent security, product liability, medical malpractice, wrongful death, wage and hour, and many other types of cases.
Why not do it in-house?
For a small local defendant, a paralegal with some time and a few searches can sometimes find a handful of former employees. It gets much harder when the defendant is a national company, turnover is high, the relevant period is years old, or you need witnesses quickly. That's where a dedicated research team saves weeks of work.
See what an EEL could uncover
Stratejic Relationships has worked exclusively with plaintiff attorneys for more than 20 years. Contact Stratejic to talk through your defendant and learn more about The EEL.
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