FAQs FOR LAW OFFICES

  1. There is a disputed document in your case, what next?

    The first step is to make contact with Ms. Fisher by filling out the contact information, by calling the office, or by email. The next step is to do a conflict check and to learn the dates for deadlines to make sure there is sufficient time to do the work.

    PLEASE NOTE: Do not send or email any documents without first obtaining Ms. Fisher’s permission.

    To avoid conflicts, Ms. Fisher will not review your case or be responsible if she is retained by the opposing side until she has been officially retained by you. Please do not discuss the specific details of your case or your opinion or your client’s opinion about the documents. Just describe the document or documents that are in question. Ms. Fisher will ask you the questions she thinks are important. Remember that everything is potentially discoverable from the first phone call in the event Ms. Fisher is named as an expert in your case. If you have assigned your paralegal or client the task of locating a document examiner, please advise them to limit the information to conflict checks, the type of documents that are in question, the availability of any originals, and to questions that Ms. Fisher may ask. Ms. Fisher will want to speak directly to you to start the retention process. Ms. Fisher will confirm her assignment with you and let you know what additional documents she will need.

  2. I have the original documents, what do I need to do?

    Avoid handling originals. Place them in manila folders or archival plastic protectors to avoid adding latent fingerprints. Secure them in a safe or locked file cabinet. Document examiners will test documents with an electrostatic detection apparatus that picks up fingerprints, as well as indentations not visible to the naked eye. In probate cases, if you anticipate a challenge to the will, Ms. Fisher can do the testing before you submit the original to the county clerk’s office. This saves time and money so that she doesn’t have to travel long distances with minimal equipment to examine the will at a later date. Every county has different regulations. Some county’s will release the original with a court order while other county’s will not.

    We do not use any of the public cloud sharing websites like Dropbox or OneDrive. We have our own private cloud storage where all documents are stored in an encrypted format.

  3. Do you always need originals before you start an examination?

    Currently, there are few original documents available for examination. When documents have been altered or fabricated, the originals rarely surface as this will confirm they have been manipulated. This is an important reason why the document examiner must have the equipment and experience to examine copies of documents that may have been digitally processed with an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program or with a graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop. Once the document is scanned using one of these programs, the document can be changed or a completely new document can be created. The examiner needs to know how to detect digitally processed documents that have used OCR software or graphics programs to determine if the documents are genuine or fabricated.

  4. How much time does it take to do the examination?

    The ideal lead time should be at least four months or more in complex cases to make sure that all the necessary documents have been subpoenaed and that there is sufficient time to do the work. Ms. Fisher recognizes that documents may surface unexpectedly during depositions and in the middle of trials. She will consider working on the case if she has sufficient time. Oftentimes, Ms. Fisher can do the work-up with her Associate Forensic Document Examiner for your case on shorter notice, but may not be available for testimony or to prepare an extended report for a few months.

  5. What can I do to assist with the examination?

    First, don’t wait until the last minute to decide you need an expert in forensic document examination. It is better to plan ahead when you believe a document will become in dispute. Second, obtain comparison writings and/or documents. This is especially important in probate, trust, and financial elder abuse cases where the last seven years of bank checks and additional signatures in medical records usually need to be subpoenaed. Oftentimes, attorneys try to resist this step as it takes time and effort. In one probate case several years ago, after pressuring the attorney to locate signatures of the decedent in the early 1980’s, she found that the Trustee of the estate had over 400 original checks dated during this time period. The arbitrator ruled in her client’s favor based on the extensive sample of contemporaneous known signatures that Ms. Fisher used for her examination.

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