Mobile evidence is now central to a striking proportion of civil and criminal work. It is decisive in fraud, in family, in employment, in harassment, and in most drug prosecutions. The instructing party who understands what mobile evidence can and cannot do usually plays a stronger hand.
At pleading stage
A short conference with an expert, before pleadings close, will identify which factual assertions are testable against device data and which are not. That in turn shapes what should be pleaded, what should be pursued in disclosure, and what preservation notices should be issued.
At disclosure
Requests for disclosure of mobile devices are often too wide to be workable, or too narrow to catch the material. An expert will help draft requests that a court will grant and that will produce something useful.
At trial
The expert is there to explain, not to advocate. The strongest reports are the ones that concede the limits of the evidence as clearly as they set out its strengths. That is what a judge remembers.