Electronically Stored Information (ESI) in Family Law

When there are disputes involving assets in a divorce case a client expects their attorney to use any means legally permissible to:

• Protect Their Rights
• Use Due Diligence to Identify all Relevant Assets
• Conduct Investigations

Protecting Your Client’s Rights

It is quite common for participants in dissolution of marriage cases to attempt to conceal information including assets well in advance of the actual filing of a lawsuit. When this happens it may be difficult to locate them for several reasons:

• They may be placed in someone else’s name.
• Assets may be placed into the custody of another family member or friend.
• They may be moved to foreign jurisdictions.

It is critical to locate the assets early rather than after a final judgement has been rendered. A client will appreciate knowing that every effort is being made to ensure that all assets are fully disclosed and that they receive the proper settlement as ordered by the court.

Due Diligence Locating Assets is a Team Effort

In divorce cases verifying assets involves verifying financial disclosure forms with bank statements, tax returns, and copies of other financial records. In complex cases a forensic accountant is sometimes necessary to decipher all these records, and this may or may not be enough to reach full disclosure. Some dishonest litigants are still able to avoid full disclosure.

Further Forensic Investigations: Electronically Stored Information

In this internet age people will often trust their personal and financial secrets to digital storage devices: phones, computers, and tablets. Despite the efforts of some to hide their personal activities and assets in their private digital world, there are methods to find these secrets and reveal the truth.

Legal Evidence Corporation’s skilled and certified technicians are able to locate and extract deleted emails, text messages, and even documents in .pdf and .doc formats.

Work with the Experts

It’s been said that all the data in the world is worthless without a way to interpret it. Similarly, all the evidence in the world is worthless if it has not been gathered and preserved according to legal evidentiary protocols. Legal Evidence Corporation is eminently qualified to search, locate, and preserve evidence of assets according to the accepted methods, assuring proper custodial care for use in court.

Legal Evidence Corporation has a long history assisting attorneys prepare their cases. We have vast resources including an archives of pleadings and motions for almost every conceivable situation involving court-related ESI.