volume practice, and screening cases is not easy.  As I have discussed in other posts, it is just not possible to devise a shortcut -- for example, in the past I discussed the idea that state unclaimed property laws could not form the basis of a false claims act case as well as whether the failure to pay Davis-Bacon wages could result in a false claim to the government. It might sound like a no-brainer, but evaluation of a qui tam case should always start by looking for the "claims."  Much ink has been spilled over the last 26 years about what is and what is not a "claim" and there is more ink yet to be spilled.  There are basically an unlimited number of ways for a wrong-does to submit false claims to the government and a "claim" can be many many things. An example of a simple case might involve billing the government twice for the same goods -- sometimes known as a "double-billing case" for the obvious reasons.  There the false claim could be the invoice submitted to the government for which no goods were recieved.  Another simple example is what I call "The Houdini."  A defendant submits invoices for the work of one or more employees on the same day, at the same time, in two different cities.  (I nicknamed this scenario "The Houdini" because no person can be in two places at the same time.) But things can more complicated quickly, and in fact I