When you need to locate a witness, there are a number of factors to consider before determining how to best go about doing it. Some witnesses can be fairly easy to locate — if you’re a legal professional looking for a witness for an immigration law case, the individual you’re working for may have direct contact information. However, what if you’re doing due diligence and looking for a witness to testify against someone or you want to send a restraining order in a civil court case? These witnesses can be much more difficult to find, and you will likely need to do some extra digging in order to skip trace the individual. However, with the best legal research software, you can get all the information you need to locate and interview witnesses  — even ones that don’t want to be found. 

Perform easier witness location with tools to discover spouses, partners, and other family members

While contacting a witness directly is the best case scenario, it’s not always possible to get direct contact information — even with access to public and private records. In situations in which you can’t find contact information for a witness, the next step is to locate and get in contact with that person’s relatives, such as a spouse, an unmarried partner, parents, children, siblings, and even more extended relationships like grandparents and business partners. These relatives or associates may have additional knowledge regarding the person’s location or contact information, which can help you determine how to go about reaching the witness directly.

• First-degree relatives, business associates, and friends can give you insight into a witness’s current or past locations and contact information. 
• By building a web of connections, you can more easily locate potential witnesses – even if they are on the run or their contact records are outdated.
• With a public and private records search engine, you can get contact information for an individual’s relatives and gain insight into your witness’s whereabouts. 

Use an expert witness locator to extrapolate to potential future locations

In some cases, it’s not enough to just have an idea of where someone is right now. If you’re dealing with an especially crafty individual, it’s possible for that person to constantly be moving around and changing their contact location to avoid you. Luckily, with the right searching tools, you may be able to predict where that individual may go in the future. For example, with an address history search, you can gain an understanding of someone’s living tendencies and behaviors, or you can use a social media search to find any web mentions or photos of the witness at specific locations – both of which will help you guess where a witness might go in the future. 

• Being able to predict where someone will go to next will help you gain the upper hand when trying to locate a witness. 
• To skip trace a witness who doesn’t want to be found, you need comprehensive information about their behaviors, tendencies, and past locations so you can make better guesses about where they will go next.
• A public and private records search engine provide you with up-to-date information pulled from a variety of sources, including social media, that helps you track down hard-to-find individuals so you can perform your witness interviews.

Perform all your witness location research in-house

Skip tracing is a difficult job, which is why so many people hire private investigators to track people. But what if you could access the same tools that private investigators use in order to perform the research yourself? With a public and private records search engine, you can save money hiring third-party investigators to perform witness location and instead gain access to all the tools you need — from property records to address history to phone appends — to skip trace any witness on your own.

• Licensed investigators are often very effective at locating witnesses because they have access to expansive skip-tracing technology.
• With the right tools, you can save money and time hiring third parties and streamline your witness location process by accessing all the information you need to perform research in-house.
• An investigative research software like Tracers gives you access to data about 98% of adults in the US so you can locate almost any individual, whether it’s an expert witness or someone else, in less time and instead focus your resources elsewhere.

Tools for locating witnesses in the quickest and most cost-effective manner

Whether you’re looking for an expert witness, a debtor for collections, or a criminal, you need to locate that person before you can proceed with the next steps of the case, like collecting witness statements or performing witness interviews. Skip tracing is difficult, but with the right tools, you can do it effectively – and keep the process in-house. 

Tracers data helps you find information about people. This information is nearly boundless – you can find residential and business addresses, address history stretching back decades, landline and cell phone numbers, relatives, and more. If you’re looking to keep your clients safe and happy and tackle witness location confidently, Tracers data is exactly what you need.

More information

What is witness location?

Witness location is the act of locating and contacting people for a legal case. Whether you’re looking for a witness, a debtor or a criminal, you need to locate that person before you can proceed with the next steps of the case. 

Who can perform witness location?

Any legal professional who needs to locate a witness for a case can perform witness location with the right tools. An attorney may need to locate a witness for an immigration law case, to perform due diligence, for a criminal case, or to send a restraining order in a civil court case.

What does witness location involve?

Witness location involves finding information about a witness in order to locate and contact them for a case. In some cases, you may be able to access information about the witness that enables you to contact them directly, and in other cases you may need to gather information about their spouses, partners, or other family members so you can contact these relatives and insight into a witness’s whereabouts. You may need to also perform an address or social media search in order to predict a witness’s potential future locations and skip trace them.

What do I need to perform witness location?

Skip tracing is difficult, but with the right witness location tools with Tracers, you can do it right. Tracers data helps you find information about people. This information is nearly boundless: residential and business addresses, address history stretching back decades, landline and cell phone numbers, relatives and more.