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How To Find A Missing Witness Without Drowning In The Internet

With so much information out there about literally everyone on earth, where do you even begin?

By Thomson Reuters  
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You can admit it: You’ve Googled yourself. And you’ve probably been surprised and horrified by what’s come up. In addition to all of the things about yourself that you’ve put onto the Internet—professional information on your law firm’s website, pictures and other random details on social media—and things you may be aware of, such as a mention in a newspaper or that blog you inadvisably wrote back in college, all manner of information you may have thought was private is likely to pop up.

More and more data about people is flooding the Web every day, and companies are developing sophisticated systems and algorithms to connect those dots and provide a clearer picture of who you are, where you live and who your friends are. Social media companies are leading the charge, allegedly building so-called “shadow profiles” full of information that you may not have shared or made public—but which your friends and associates have put out there.

If you care a whit about privacy, or hope to one day disappear into the ether, the above sounds a bit like an Orwellian nightmare. But if you’re an overworked lawyer desperately seeking information on missing witnesses to build a client’s case, it’s a lot more like a godsend.

Of course, there’s a catch: With so much information out there about literally everyone on earth, where do you even begin? And once you have begun with that simplest approach—Googling someone—how do you start to sift through the terabytes of information produced, much of it likely to be useless and full of false positives, to find your witness? What if, for example, your witness’ name is John Smith or any other relatively common name? You may quickly find yourself swimming, or perhaps drowning, in results without a clear path forward.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that lawyers may be starting with relatively little information to work with, just a name in many cases. Luckily, from even so inauspicious a beginning, results can be found, and with them cases made.

First, sit down with your client. What does she know or remember about the potential witness? In addition to a name, you may learn a rough geographic area in which to look and a rough age range, both of which may seem too vague to be of any use but may actually be critical to determining which John Smith is your John Smith. Better yet, your client may have even seen John Smith, or know who John Smith is likely to be seen around with, which the proliferation of social media make very handy information to have.

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Next, conduct a public records search using a public records platform. Even starting an online people search in a public records platform with relatively little information can yield surprisingly robust results to help locate your target. Full of address and utilities records, with a name and an idea of where in the world a witness might reside, a public records search can hit pay dirt immediately, providing Mr. Smith’s address in just a few minutes.

In addition to utility records, real property records within the public records platform can help with locating a witness, should that witness be a registered owner of any real estate. Another source of address information is in DMV records. However, without additional identifying information such as a date of birth, you may need to filter through a number of false positives in your search results.

Here’s where having a public records platform that incorporates social media can really come in handy. In cases where you’re struggling to find key information, such as date of birth, social media can be a gold mine. The information discovered on the witness’s social media page can be used to sufficiently supplement your query into other public records databases to narrow the search results – or to locate the witness outright. Perhaps the ever-trusting Mr. Smith, identified by your client from his vacation photos on social media, also forgot to make his birthdate private. Or perhaps he did, but that didn’t stop his friends from publicly posting their best wishes on his special day.

With the proliferation of public records and personally-identifiable information publicly available online, it’s critical to have the right tools for the job when trying to locate a missing witness. PeopleMap on Westlaw, a public records search resource, empowers attorneys to conduct all the aforementioned sleuthing themselves. With it, you can quickly locate people and find critical information about their connections, assets, and more. Using Thomson Reuters’ own algorithms, PeopleMap builds a more complete profile and picture of the individuals sought, and will save you more valuable time than blunt-force searches you do yourself.

With enough doggedness, creativity and resources, just about everyone can be found—and hauled into court. For a free sample search and demo, visit here.

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Thomson Reuters is not a consumer reporting agency and none of its services or the data contained therein constitute a “consumer report” as such term is defined in the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. sec. 1681 et seq. The data provided to you may not be used as a factor in consumer debt collection decisioning, establishing a consumer’s eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, government benefits, or housing, or for any other purpose authorized under the FCRA. By accessing one of our services, you agree not to use the service or data for any purpose authorized under the FCRA or in relation to taking an adverse action relating to a consumer application.

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