Assisting attorneys preparing for a trial can entail everything from locating witnesses who do not want to be found or are simply unknown, combing through hundreds of pages of documents, collecting signed declarations, or conducting surveillance. But it frequently takes more. No matter the case, PII brings experience, keen analysis, and a sense of strategic imperative to each investigation.
Accustomed to working with time and budget constraints, and to coordinating the efforts of large investigation teams, PII investigators know when creativity counts, whether it requires finding a needle in a haystack or seeing the elephant in the room.
• When a legal team needed to locate a long-retired police detective with a very common name, PII investigators scoured local newspapers for critical clues to locate the detective at his retirement home in Arizona.
• In a premises liability case, the plaintiff lost his hand in a piece of machinery. PII photographed the scene, sought out police and fire department records from the date of the incident, and tracked down a witness who had been onsite shortly after the injury occurred.
• An attorney needed to locate a witness in a personal injury case who was now homeless. PII investigators used a combination of criminal court records and shoe leather to track down the witness who was living near a freeway off-ramp.
• After a student drowned in a high school swimming pool, PII investigators located and interviewed students who were present at the time, as well as former school employees who provided evidence about past practices at the school.
• In an investigation of wage and hour complaints at a car wash, PII investigators assisted attorneys attempting to determine whether worker complaints of uncompensated breaks were accurate through interviews with affected employees and reviews of pay records.