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The truth about computer forensics is a fair amount more challenging than you would expect. Unlike television depictions — where a couple of keystrokes and mouse-clicks, followed by some cheery bleeps and bloops inevitably leads to a major breakthrough, A true investigator will tell you that a computer forensic investigation takes skill, creativity, and hard work. However, when the results are in, they are often as gratifying to us as they are useful to the Charlotte attorneys we serve.

While computer forensics has helped crack everything from missing persons cases to contract disputes and even murders , it’s proven no less important or versatile in the courtroom. The uses include (but are by no means limited to):

Divorces and their attendant child custody issues can prove especially thorny, which is why Barefoot PI often uses computer forensics in conjunction with our domestic investigation work. It’s useful in another respect as well; probate matters often pivot on suspicions of the decedent’s wishes being ignored, or of key documents like trusts and wills having been altered. We comb through the digital traces to ensure that matters are brought to a fair and equitable close.

The truth is often spoken when it seems as though nobody is paying attention. However, emails among friends, social media posts, or even internal corporate communications, can be brought to light and tell a much different story than we’ve been lead to believe. As we’ve mentioned earlier, this has proven useful in many criminal matters, but it can also be a means of verifying witness statements, finding evidence of fraudulent workman’s compensation claims, forgery, or embezzlement, establishing the veracity of an IP claim, enforcing a non-compete agreement, or uncovering conspiratorial behavior.

If you’ve read to this point, you have likely noticed that we’ve explored many of these use cases from something of a prosecutorial standpoint. This underscores the core part of our work: putting the same tools at the disposal of defense attorneys or plaintiffs in civil cases. In the former case, our discovery process can help prove a client’s innocence; in the latter, we are able to uncover fraud, abuse, and other activities that can help cinch a civil matter.

A surprising number of people take no pains whatsoever to cover their digital tracks, but even then their trail can go cold as files are erased or overwritten, or drives become corrupted. Even those who are more careful or crafty, however, can still be tracked through the traces left behind in caches, cookies, and search histories. 
Barefoot PI deploys advanced electronic forensic techniques that are further guided by our many years of investigative experience. Our use of computer forensics often intersects with our other skills, such as background checks and witness interviews, that won’t be widely available to an IT department or the average law firm.

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