How a Private Investigator Can Help Your Legal Case and When You Should Consider Hiring One

Join us as we sit down with Private Investigator, Jennifer Brissenden of Brissenden Investigations, LLC, to discuss the benefits of hiring a private investigator for your legal case, and what they can and cannot do in their line of work. In this episode, Jennifer discusses:

•    The wide range of services private investigators offer in both investigation and consultation. 
•    What things private investigators can do, what they can’t do.
•    How PIs are like and not like the ones you see on TV.
•    Types of information private investigators have access to that the general public is unable to obtain.
•    How PIs find property, public records and social media posts.
•    The different types of tools and devices that private investigators use.
•    How a P.I. can help in divorce and personal injury cases. 

If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.

To learn more about how Jennifer can help you, you can visit her website: https://brissenden-investigations.com/

Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.

Transcript

Intro:
Welcome to Modern Family Matters, a podcast devoted to exploring family law topics that matter most to you. Covering a wide range of legal, personal, and family law matters, with expert analysis from skilled attorneys and professional guests, we hope that our podcast provides answers, clarity, and guidance towards a better tomorrow for you and your family. Here's your host, Steve Altishin.

Steve Altishin  
Hi everyone, I'm Steve Altishin, Director of Client Partnerships at Pacific Cascade Legal. And today, I'm here with Private Investigator Jennifer Brissenden, to talk about how a private investigator can help your legal case, and when you should consider hiring one. So hey, Jennifer, how are you doing today? 

Jennifer Brissenden  
Good morning, Steve. I'm good. How about you? 

Steve Altishin  
I'm doing well. And I'm excited about today, we've been talking about this for a while getting this done. And because it's so fascinating what you do, and a lot of people don't get it. I mean, you know, we get our private investigator from watching Mannix or, you know, something like that. And so it's gonna be cool finding out what you guys really do. But before we started on that, can you just sort of talk a little bit about yourself, and maybe what brought you to become a private investigator?

Jennifer Brissenden  
Sure, absolutely. Um, I spent a great deal of my career actually a mental health and addictions work, both with juveniles and adults. And that eventually morphed into my working for a forensic mental health program out in Washington County. And, you know, between all the crime shows I watch and being able to be part of that program, I realized that I was absolutely fascinated with the criminal component of people. That was just a contract position, though, through Washington County, our contract was only to two years. So when that ended, I decided to apply for a position in law enforcement. Law enforcement is where I spent the last 10 years of my career. I left that last year, I worked for a little while on mental health cases. But the last nine years, I spent specifically working with domestic violence offenders stalking and sex trafficking cases. COVID hit, I realized, a I loved working from home B, I loved my dog at my feet. You know, and there's just there's a lot going on in the Portland community for those who are local, and I just didn't feel it was a good fit anymore. And I took some time off and decided I wanted to stick with the investigation aspect of things, but in a different capacity. I wanted to continue working from home, I wanted to be my own boss. So I own my own business. And here I am.

Steve Altishin  
I like I like it. You know, you follow that sort of track, I would have sort of expected it, but I guess I'm expecting it again, from watching TV shows, you know? Like the first question I was going to ask was, can you really jump into an open convertible Ferrari and drive away? I won't ask that question. But what types of things can  a private investigator do? And what kind of services can they offer?

Jennifer Brissenden  
I mean, it's so varied. A lot of private investigators, myself included work for attorneys. Some will work on the criminal defense side, investigating those cases, some will work on the civil side, which is more where I spend my time by choice. A lot of insurance companies will hire private investigators to investigate cases of potential fraud, injury, those sorts of things. I've been a little bit shocked by the number of just private individuals who have reached out to me for things so there's really a wide array of where we get business and then within that kind of what exactly it is that we're doing for those people.

Steve Altishin  
Does this include things like going out and watching people? I mean, is that, do you really do that kind of stuff? Are you doing surveillance, or is a lot of it like at the computer, because I know there's a lot of computer investigation kind of stuff that goes on now. 

Jennifer Brissenden  
I think, again, that really varies by investigator because we obviously we get to pick and choose kind of where we want to be within that. There are some that love the surveillance love the fieldwork aspect of it. I don't love that as much I really tailor mine more two civil cases. There's a lot of computer investigation and we can talk a little bit more about like what what it is that I'm looking for in those a lot of witness interviews, character witness and Interviews, calling neighbors calling employers. I mean, the list is long.

Steve Altishin  
So this is a lot of stuff you did when you were in the law enforcement, where you kind of meet people and get information out of them?

Jennifer Brissenden  
Yes. And that's what I love. I am very naturally nosy I have been my entire life. I want to know everything about everyone, even if they don't want me to know. But yeah, just I mean, I kind of, I kind of think of myself as like a dock connector and a dock collector, right? You're just getting all of these pieces of information and trying to put them into like this bigger picture as it pertains to the case.

Steve Altishin  
Do you ever have to go to court?

Jennifer Brissenden  
Yes, but it's fairly rare, fairly rare. Although I missed the court testimony, but certainly if you're, you know, working for a client and you're gathering information, and there needs to be proof of, of how they obtained the information, you know, then I might do a deposition or actually attend court really kind of depends. I know I'm giving you a lot of it depends answers.

Steve Altishin  
Yeah. Yeah. If someone let's say, because we get a lot of people who do mediation to try to settle their divorce, and there's property involved. There's potentially custody of the child involved, there's potentially parenting time who's gonna see the child involved? How can you help those people? I mean, how does how does? How do you work with someone like that to get that information nd then get it to them? What kind of form does it come in?

Jennifer Brissenden  
Right. That's a great question. Um, how do I get that? I dig, dig, dig, dig through social media, social media is huge. There is so much information, if you can kind of follow those spider webs. I might, if we're talking about parenting safety time concerns, I might be reaching out to DHS, I might be running civil cases that they may have previous had previous divorces, restraining orders, those sorts of things. I might be talking to neighbors or co workers. I can do asset searches What a show I know, obviously, money and assets plays a huge role both in you know, civil cases that your attorneys are working when it comes to divorce. But also in like personal injury cases, doing asset checks for people looking for businesses that might be hidden. I was actually just working on a case a few weeks ago, and discovered that there was another business that had been hidden, which gave another option to go against that business for potential liability. So there's kind of all kinds of things that can happen from a computer perspective, we have software that doesn't give us everything, right, I can't dig into people's financial records, I can't obtain their bank account information. But the software that we have desk definitely captures a lot more data than the general public is going to have access to.

Steve Altishin  
Can you find out--I know a lot of a lot of issues arise when someone becomes concerned with the other person who they're with, what they're doing. Maybe they're doing things that could affect their ability to be a good parent. How do you go about starting to find that kind of stuff about them? I mean, you don't go out to the bars and look for them? 

Jennifer Brissenden  
I sure can. If we have enough info to say, Hey, I know he's going out drinking with his buddies this weekend. And I'm concerned because I know that he has a problem with alcohol and has done XYZ in the past. I certainly can go do surveillance at the bar. And there's always someone willing to talk. That's what I found, if you make enough calls. I had a case, gosh, probably a month and a half ago. And every single person that I called, gave me another name of somebody to call, Hey, I know that so and so has experience with this guy, why don't you give them a call and I just kind of follow the rabbit trail down until until you eventually find what it is that you're looking for.

Steve Altishin  
We also have a lot of, you know, personal injury type of cases and you help with those. And would you how would you go about because I know liability is always an issue. And establishing liability is always really important even before you start the case. How can you help those kinds of folks?

Jennifer Brissenden  
I will learn by example. So I'm just going to give you an example if that's okay. The last personal injury case, the day that I did was tie to a motor vehicle accident involving a motorcyclist and an SUV, the motorcyclist was injured pretty bad. He went to Attorney after attorney after attorney. And no one would help him. We got a hold of the police report. And the initial report that was taken, had interviewed, I think two or three people if I'm remembering right, and they said the motorcycle was speeding. There was no no information saying how do we know that no follow up questions. So what I did is, I found a list of witnesses, I found a list of 911 callers. And I reached out to each of those individuals and said, Hey, talk me through what you saw that night. In this case, after having gone to countless attorney who says you're a fault, I'm not helping you. What I ended up with was a big long report that said, every single person I talked to told me the motorcycle was speeding, because they heard it, nobody saw it, they just said it sounded loud. So I assumed, so he took that report with him, walked into an attorney's office, and they took the case. So I think a lot of times when it can be helpful, even not just when you're knee deep in a case and kind of having an O moment. But when you're just starting when you're you know, people who are just thinking about, you know, maybe I should consult with an attorney on this, but I don't have enough information, I think it can be helpful to get the information before you ever walk in those doors, or before you ever get the call.

Steve Altishin  
You know, one of the things that happens on and maybe the first interview we have with our clients or very shortly, is we end up giving them a list. And it's discovery. And some of it you have to give to the other side, some of it you want to some of it you want to get obviously and so we handle a list of things that you need to figure out, you know, an answer these questions. Is that something they can come to you because they may not, especially if they don't didn't do the financing, they may not even know where to start looking for some of this stuff?

Jennifer Brissenden  
Absolutely. Yeah. And I always, I mean, if somebody calls me and I don't feel like I can help them find the information they're seeking, I'm going to tell them, I don't think I can help you. But here's maybe a resource that can because there are PIs who undoubtedly specialize in certain areas, right? You might have one that does more of like computer forensics type stuff, you might have one that is better train and how to find financial information. So definitely though I can sit down with someone and if I can't help them, I can refer them out to somebody who can.

Steve Altishin  
Do you ever look at social media, is that becoming a part of private investigation?

Jennifer Brissenden  
Social media is everything. That's how we figure out who do people know, how do they know them, you know, that can be relevant in infidelity investigations. It can be relevant and in fraud type stuff. I wish I could tell you about a case I'm working on right now. Because very much comes to mind. I've spent probably 20 hours combing through Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and you know, every site possible to try and figure out who's connected to who. So I think it's a huge part of investigations these days.

Steve Altishin  
Is the most private investigators this asking this kind of question cuz I'm sure they're gonna come in and start to ask is, is, you know, how long do these take? Is that something that you can can like, give them a sort of an estimation about because you you've been doing that kind of stuff? Or is it just it's X dollars an hour? And at the end of the day, we'll see where it goes.

Jennifer Brissenden  
You're gonna love this. My answer is both.

Steve Altishin  
I do love that.

Jennifer Brissenden  
Some stuff has gotten dry, right? If someone contacts me, and they're like, hey, I want to make sure that my soon to be ex spouse doesn't have major assets that I don't know about. He doesn't have a vacation home in the Bahamas, or, you know, a business that's kind of flying under the radar, that kind of stuff, super cut and dry. I can oftentimes just do those sorts of things on a flat fee. Investigations I've discovered and I learned this the hard way by doing a flat fee once because I was like, Oh, I'm gonna find this information. No problem. I thought it would take me three, four hours. It took me about 25 I was very wrong. I always have a conversation with the client of what is your budget? What is the most important thing for you to find? And try and really narrow it down. And I always want sure that that we're clear with one another of where's your cap financially for this information, but we can't predict I can't predict if I'm going to do surveillance and try and follow Joe to the bar and get a picture of him, you know, passed out on a pool table. I don't know if that's going to take an hour, or if that's gonna take six hours to get that information. So that piece is all about communication. I am, I probably communicate too much with my clients, but I want their feedback, right? If something is going in a certain direction, I want their feedback. Do you want me to follow this, do you not?

Steve Altishin  
Kind of that whole consultation part of it. It's it's like, can I get Can we come to you and say, you know, what do I do? What should I do? In order to kind of protect my privacy, or protect them coming at me or something like that? I'm not sure I understand your question. I guess I'm thinking is if someone has stuff on social media, they've big social media presence. Can you help them? Just talk about how and where you, you know, people find this kind of stuff?

Jennifer Brissenden  
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Steve Altishin  
Just seems like that's a big deal nowadays is people don't know where their stuff goes.

Jennifer Brissenden  
Right? And like, where do you start with that? It's a big world. The Internet is a big world. And there's so much information out there.

Steve Altishin  
How about how about stalking cases? And we get a lot of the, you know, restraining orders. no fap family Abuse Prevention Act stuff? Can you help with those kinds of cases?

Jennifer Brissenden  
Yes, and I want to, that's, that's my passion, which is why I'm being very selective in the work that I'm doing. I am choosing to not work for criminal defense attorneys, or insurance investigations, I'm just not doing that I want to stay in this civil world, related to personal injury, and the world of TV. That's where my expertise is. That's where my passion is. There's a lot of info, typically, especially, you know, let's say we're talking a couple in their 40s or 50s, who are getting divorce and there is some stalking concerns. There's domestic violence concerns, the odds are, this isn't the first time it's happened. So a big piece of that is going back and trying to maybe locate an ex spouse from 20 years ago, right, make a phone call there, try and dig up civil records, pull previous divorce records, assist with with FAPA applications, if necessary, testify in court, in regards to you know, the risks behind domestic violence and how that can impact children. So I think that there's a lot that can be done in that realm of divorce cases.

Steve Altishin  
Can private investigators, like yourself, work outside of Oregon, or find information from outside of Oregon?

Jennifer Brissenden  
I am yeah, I'm working on an out of state case right now, some states and it varies by state, have a rule that if you're going to be in their state investigating someone for a certain period of time that you have to notify them that you're doing that. And I think it's just kind of a noncompetition thing that they don't want out of state investigators stealing work. Some states don't seem to care, others care more, if there's going to be any kind of surveillance or anything though I live in myself to Oregon and Washington, if there's going to be in person surveillance.

Steve Altishin  
That kind of leads into the next question I was gonna ask is, did you see private investigator who's doing all these incredibly, you know, complex things and things you kind of go really can you do that? So things that you're really not allowed to do? It's a private investigator.

Jennifer Brissenden  
There are a lot of things I'm not allowed to do. All those movies that you've ever watched. None of that is real. I actually had someone asked me a couple months ago, well, can't you just sneak into their office and get the personnel files? No, I wanted to don't get me wrong. I want to because I know that's where it's at. We have to abide by the laws. I don't get to sneak into someone's private residence. I don't get to tap their phone lines without permission. I can't see Again, do their place of work and try and get personnel files. We can place GPS devices on vehicles, but we have to have permission from at least one of the owners, the car, you know, in relation to some of your cases that might be applicable, if there's a joint husband, wife, who are on a vehicle, and she wants to know what he's doing. As long as I would have her permission, then that's something we could do. But all the shady stuff, say that you see on movies, it's not real. It's really not, I don't have to be myself. I can impersonate whoever I want with the exclusion of law enforcement. But many calls that I make aren't as myself, right. I know enough about them that I can get a story and have some other reason for, for calling and getting information. If that makes sense. It makes total sense. Does that I love that part of it, right? Because I get to practice my seventh grade drama skills. It allows me to kind of be creative in the work that I'm doing.

Steve Altishin  
Once you're done, once you you you've gotten information. Do you do you give them I'm sure you give that information to someone is? Are there like reports as it forms? As you know, how does that complex an attorney? How do they get that information from you?

Jennifer Brissenden  
Most of the time, I'm going to write a very detailed report. But not all the time, there are some attorneys who just want that information verbally or shoot him a quick text because they don't want it in a file. As part of the discovery. People might want to be hiring me without anyone knowing that they have hired me. So that's part of my my service contracts. Very clearly outlines, I want to report I want a written report versus No, I just want you to call me and tell me what you found. And get that information to me.

Steve Altishin  
And you're able to do that. Oh, that's that's that's allowed? 

Jennifer Brissenden  
Yes. Yes. 

Steve Altishin  
We are getting close to being done. Oh, my gosh. But before we go, what would you tell someone this sort of a some advice? If they're going out and just looking for a private investigator? I mean, what do you what should they start thinking about? Their private investigators should be doing or can do.

Jennifer Brissenden  
So kind of you mean, like questions they should be asking when they're hiring? Oh, gosh. I mean, I think the list is long. I think the first thing is hire a private investigator who answers their phone. I have heard, I'm not joking, Steve. It's crazy. I've heard people say I left three messages. And they just never called me back. Or you know, I hired someone years ago, and I had no idea like there was no communication for a month. So if you're thinking about hiring a PII, make sure that their communication is good out of the gates. Ask them how they communicate, right? What you can expect, can I expect you to give me daily updates, weekly updates, monthly updates. Ask about experience, make sure that they have experience that is relevant to what it is you're looking for. If I have someone who you know wants to hire me to go conduct some character witness interviews, make sure I have interview skills, not just that I'm not just like law enforcement, who is gonna you know, call someone up and interrogate them. Because that's not how we're gonna get information. If there's such a long list of things, ask how how they're gonna deliver that information at the end of the day.

Steve Altishin  
I love that. I love that. Well, it is time to go. But thank you so much for joining us today and sitting down and talking to us about the kinds of things you do the kinds of things a private investigator can and can't do, and, you know, questions to ask them before you want to hire them. So thank you very much for being here today.

Jennifer Brissenden  
Thank you for the opportunity to be here. Oh, I love it.

Steve Altishin  
And thank you everyone else for joining us. Until next time, stay safe, stay happy and be well.

Outro:
This has been Modern Family Matters, a legal podcast focusing on providing real answers and direction for individuals and families. Our podcast is sponsored by Pacific Cascade Legal, serving families in Oregon and Washington. If you are in need of legal counsel or have additional questions about a family law matter important to you, please visit our websites at pacificcascadelegal.com or pacificcascadefamilylaw.com. You can also call our headquarters at (503) 227-0200 to schedule a case evaluation with one of our seasoned attorneys. Modern Family Matters, advocating for your better tomorrow and offering legal solutions important to the modern family.