Computer Forensics For Dummies®

Chapter 5. Minding and Finding the Loopholes

In This Chapter

• Choosing cases wisely

• Proving that you can prove the case

• Pleasing the court with credentials

• Getting up to speed

• Closing and controlling loopholes

Legal hardball is expensive, irrational, and rampant. Parties involved in commercial or civil litigation often defy rational behavior. (Commercial litigation covers business and employment disputes.) In contentious divorce actions, the crazy-meter can go off the chart. Litigation cases range from relatively simple matters to complex, money-burning sagas that take years to resolve.

For all types of cases at all times, the devil is in the details. Small items in an investigation, if overlooked, open loopholes that the opposing side can use to undercut your results and make you look incompetent. Loopholes may be either party's best or only chance of winning. Learn how to harness loophole power. The opportunity to harm the case or be humiliated on the witness stand is unlimited, for either not following standard procedure or not being able to defend what you did or did not do. By making informed choices about forensic methods and work habits, you defend your analysis and opinions from fact-spinning by the opposition.

In this chapter, we begin by discussing your entree into civil or criminal cases. The focus is mostly on cases where you aren't working with a prosecutor (see Chapter 3) or securing a crime scene (see Chapter 4). You decide whether to take a case, and if you do, what arrangements ...