It goes without saying, of course, that hiring a licensed private investigator can make all the difference to your case. However, it’s also just as important to make sure the PI you hire has a license. That is if your state requires them to carry one to provide investigative services. Which does include a majority of states.
Here at Advantage Investigations, for instance, we have licenses to practice in multiple states:
- New York: NY – 11000209361
- Connecticut: CT – 1362480
- Georgria: GA – 20202963
- New Jersey: NJ – 0450553831
- Florida: FL – M20000009519
One of the main concerns with hiring an unlicensed private investigator is that if they provide investigative services, any evidence provided may go under significantly more scrutiny. Whether the PI has the skills or not, for their evidence to be acceptable in court they must adhere to stringent rules. For instance, the documentation of said evidence must be thorough and correctly collected without contamination.
When investigative services lead to legal action
Hiring a licensed private investigator becomes even more important when engaging in cases that have the potential for legal action. For instance, specific evidence may require follow-up. This might lead to criminal, civil, or disciplinary action, which in turn leads to court.
If the evidence was collected by an unlicensed consultant, for instance, said evidence may not be admissible in court. Improperly obtained evidence is thrown out and useless. Which would lead to a headache for the attorneys involved and much more work. It’s much better to simply go straight to a licensed private investigator in the first place.
Hiring a licensed private investigator makes the relevant evidence unimpeachable in court. If not done correctly, or through an unlicensed individual, it puts the case at great risk. Since other parties can challenge the validity of the investigation itself, as well as the evidence.
Advantages of hiring a licensed private investigator
There are a plethora of advantages to hiring a licensed private investigator. Namely, they can assist attorneys with tasks that would save them time; allowing them to focus on their client’s needs and case prep.
Below we outline a few tasks PIs are particularly good at, that they can provide to assist in your case:
- Employment background checks: PIs are experts at finding information concerning people’s pasts. Among these kinds of investigations, employment background checks are some of the most common. Additionally, they come up in a wide array of contexts in court.
- Document verification: Being that private investigators are already experts in properly documenting evidence for use in court, they are also very good at verifying documents follow due process in court too.
- Fraud examination: PIs can look into the background of a given individual or larger entity, particularly their activity to determine whether they have engaged in fraudulent activity.
- Corporate and business financial investigations: Although larger companies often have their own internal staff (such as an HR department) to handle certain investigations, it is not uncommon for them to need outside help. This is where private investigators come in. It may be simply for an internal investigation, but may also be relevant to follow up in court. It’s best to go with a licensed private investigator here for that very reason. Due to the fact that an internal investigation can often lead to legal action.
- Witness interviews and background checks: Countless cases require the statements of a witness. And PIs are excellent at acquiring witness interviews, as well as, logging them correctly.
- Skip-tracing: Involves finding witnesses or other individuals that may be difficult to find that are important to a given case. This can be done in a variety of situations. It can be for legal reasons, for example, to deliver official documentation and/or subpoenas. Skipt-tracing can also be utilized when attempting to locate a missing person.
The tasks above, as you can see, often require or lead to some kind of legal action that may also be relevant in court. Meaning, when undertaking an investigation, it’s of utmost importance to hire a licensed private investigator. In order to ensure that any evidence collected is admissible and no vulnerable to scrutiny.
If you find yourself in need of a licensed private investigator and their particular set of skills, please feel free to call us. Or simply click on this link to get in contact with one of our team members.
