Personal Injury Background Checks Are Important

Personal Injury Background Checks

In personal injury cases it’s quite common that attorneys use an expert witness. They may be used either by the plaintiff or the party being sued. An expert witness is a witness who either by reason of education, training or work has some skill that she can use to explain something complex to the jury. The hope is this will allow the jury to better understand that complex issue.

Personal Injury Background Checks-Checking Out The Witness

In terms of checking out witnesses there are several things that you can do:

Google

Do a Google name search using the connector term. Your Google name search should be set up as follows “brien”AROUND(2)”roche”;

If you have a picture of the person then in the search bar click the camera icon and upload that picture;

To get a picture of a person, go to Google Images and conduct a search;

Set up a Google Alert as to the witness;

Go to Google Scholar at https://scholar.google.com to check out any articles cited or written by the person;

Go to Google Video at www.google.com/videohp to see if there is anything there on this witness;

Pacer

Go to the federal court search page at www.pacer.gov and use PACER Case Locator which will do a search of all federal courts. On that page, use “find parties advanced”. When you have found what you want on PACER, in order to get most of the documents for free, go to “Recap” or what is called www.courtlistener.com where you can get most of the PACER documents for free;

Public Sources

Go to the public library and 2 good databases AtoZReference and ReferenceUSA, both of which are good in terms of locating people;

If you have a Facebook page then go to your page and key in who it is you want to search for;

Whether you have a Twitter account or not, check out what they’re saying on Twitter at http://twitter.com/search-advanced;

If you have a Linkedin page and want to search whether or not the witness has a Linkedin page then go to your Linkedin account. Using the search box in the top left side of the page, you can search for someone else. Before you conduct any search, click the “me” drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner and click on “settings” and “privacy”. Click the privacy tab at the top of the screen and then click “profile viewing options”. Choose “private mode” which leaves no trace of your identity;

To check out old websites of the person go to www.archive.org and use whatever web address you have for that person;

Submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to any state licensing boards if they have state licenses;

Search the Defense Research Institute at www.dri.org to see if this person has spoken or presented to that organization;

Check the Virginia Supreme Court website for local courts where that person lives to see if there are any pending or past lawsuits involving that person;

Personal Injury Background Checks-Fee Sites

If you have access to the Lexis or Westlaw databases, then check those out;

Skip Smasher is a subscription background database available to private investigators. At this site you can typically get a social security number. In general with a social security number you can get a host of information on people. Another fee-based site where you can get a social security number is www.tloxp.com;

Go to www.crimesmasher.com which is a publicly available site to do a criminal background check;

Check www.blackbookonline.info which can provide a wealth of free public records;

To check social media and news sites, go to the site called www.peekyou.com which searches 60 other sites;

www.opensecrets.org has tracked political contributions since 1990

Confirm the school background of the witness;