The answer is almost always earlier than you think. Evidence disappears. Witnesses move. Digital footprints get scrubbed. The window for effective investigative work is widest at the beginning of a case — and it narrows every day that passes. By the time the investigator is called, the work is often harder, more expensive, and less complete than it would have been at the start.
Why It Matters
Criminal defense attorneys are skilled professionals. Insurance adjusters know their claims. SIU investigators know what fraud looks like.
The question is not whether they are capable. The question is whether they have time.
A defense attorney managing a full caseload cannot reasonably spend days in the field locating a witness. A claims adjuster handling a full portfolio cannot conduct the kind of sustained observation that establishes a pattern. An SIU investigator with competing priorities cannot be in two places at once.
That is where a PI fits — not above the attorney or adjuster, but alongside them. Working the ground-level part of the case while counsel handles the formal legal process. Getting into the trenches where the case actually lives.
A PI provides a different perspective: outside the legal file, on the ground, testing what the records say against what can actually be located, observed, documented, and verified.
From the Field
For Criminal Defense Attorneys:
The earlier a PI is engaged in a criminal matter, the more options defense counsel retains.
Witnesses are the most time-sensitive asset in any criminal case. They move. They become unavailable. They get approached by the other side first. A PI retained early can locate and document witness information before that window closes — giving defense counsel something to work with at the point when it actually matters.
Scene documentation is equally time-sensitive. Physical environments change. Security camera footage gets overwritten. Signage gets replaced. What a scene looks like six months after an incident is not necessarily what it looked like the night it happened. Getting a PI on scene early preserves what is actually there.
And there is something else worth saying plainly: people sometimes tell a PI things they will not tell an attorney. The presence of a lawyer — even a defense lawyer — changes how people respond. A skilled investigator working the neighborhood, talking to people who knew the parties, can surface information that would never emerge in a formal interview.
For Insurance Carriers and Defense Counsel:
Two situations call for early investigative engagement.
The first is case value. High-value claims — significant bodily injury, long-term disability, complex fraud — carry enough exposure that early investigative investment makes clear financial sense. If a claim has the potential to cost a carrier six or seven figures, the cost of establishing early documentation is not an expense. It is risk management.
The second is pattern recognition. When a claims adjuster or SIU investigator identifies something that does not add up — inconsistencies in the claimant's account, activity that conflicts with the claimed limitation, a history of prior claims — that is the moment to call. Not after the pattern is fully established. At the first sign that something is worth looking at.
The early window — before litigation changes the environment — is typically when the most natural, routine activity is available to document. After that window closes, the same assignment becomes more difficult.
Waiting until the claim is well-developed, the parties are entrenched, and the claimant's attorney is involved makes every part of the investigative process more difficult.
"The right time to call is when something does not add up — not after you have spent months trying to prove it."
The Exhibit One Standard
Investigative support is most valuable when it is engaged before the case becomes a crisis. The right time to call is when something does not add up — not after you have spent months trying to prove it.
What Early Investigative Engagement Can Include
Depending on the matter, early investigative support from Exhibit One may include:
Witness Location and Documentation
Identifying and documenting witnesses before they become unavailable — or before the other side gets there first.
Scene Documentation
Preserving what a scene actually looks like at or near the time of the incident, before the environment changes.
Claimant Activity Surveillance
Establishing a documented baseline of observable activity early in the life of the claim.
Background Intelligence
Understanding who the parties actually are before depositions, hearings, or trial preparation begins.
Social Media and Digital Intelligence
Identifying and preserving relevant publicly available information before content is deleted, restricted, changed, or otherwise becomes unavailable.
Direct Investigator Consultation
Jeffrey Miller is available to discuss the investigative landscape of a matter before formal engagement — to help counsel decide whether and when investigative support makes sense for a specific case.
For criminal defense attorneys, insurance carriers, and defense counsel evaluating investigative support for active Florida matters, Exhibit One Investigations is available for direct consultation.