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In the judicial proceeding following the destruction of the fourth largest security firm, Lehman Brothers, some Wyrd and wonderful story have emerged. In case such as the litigation around Lehman brother demise, one of the key interrogation is always, “who know what, when?” It is rarely easy for the attorney reviewing the literally millions of page of emails, reports and other documents? to find evidence of that crucial query Well, one man has found a way.

According to Bloomberg news, Anton Valukas is the bankruptcy examiner in complaint of discovering who knew about what risk at what time and then ignored that knowledge, lead to the demise of Lehman Bros. But how to sort through 34 million page of documents? You use your caput And your search terms.

Twenty attorney at the Chicago-based law firm Valukas chairs, Edward Jenner & Block, were told to sit down in a conference room and figure out how to hunt the document for what they needed, being “as imaginative as you can.” The hunt footing the gang of twenty came up with proved quite useful, and future captains of finance should take note to avoid victimization same: “just between us,” “discuss,” “big trouble,” “risk,” ”concern” and all-time greats, “too late,” and “stupid.”

Of course the term “stupid” showed up in one of the most prescient emails, from the then head of fixed income at Lehman, Roger Nagioff, to David Goldfarb, Lehman’s former chief strategy officer. ”I am probably leash months too late in the job,” Nagioff wrote to Goldfarb on June 26, 2007. “A big deal got pulled today and others are being restructured down … we are probably going to get punished for our stupidity.”

Many of the communication theory flowing from Lehman executive including Chief executive director officer Richard “Dick” Fuld, were the focus of Anton Valukas’ 2,200 page report, now being used in at least three lawsuits against the former CEO and other Lehman executives.

Why are such communications important to the lawsuit? Saint Peter Henning, a former s lawyer who now Teach at John Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, explained it to Bloomberg like this: ”What researcher are looking for is any turn of phrase that can give them insight into what people were mentation at that time. That can be valuable because electronic mail are real time and often unfiltered and can help to establish intent.”

Especially when the intent, and the termination are, well … stupid.