Dallas Divorce Lawyers Note Increased Use in Electronic Evidence
Thursday, September 25th, 2008A recent survey of nation-wide divorce lawyers confirms a local trend — electronic evidence is being used more widely in divorce litigation. E-mail is the most prevalent form of electronic evidence being used, but text messages and GPS tracking are other forms that litigants are finding informative.
In Dallas area divorce litigation, there has been a distinct increase in requests for seizure of computer equipment for analysis by forensic computer experts. Forensic (which means used in court) computer experts are able to locate information on a hard drive that was previously deleted. The delete key is actually a fallacy — deleting information from a computer may delete it from normal view, but the information remains on the hard drive until that particular closet of memory has been written over by new information. For example, I have used this type of evidence to identify hidden assets in a property division.
It does appear that women present electronic evidence for use in litigation more than men, according to the nation-wide survey.
