Broad-Based Experiences
There are three considerations when confronted with how extensive is a document examiner's experience. These can be stated as questions to ask yourself:
- How does each item of the examiner’s experience apply specifically to my problem? See Blocking a Blitz of Lab Tests for how much of what is being peddled might only add to costs.
- If the skill is applicable but rare, might a specialist do better? As in medicine, some are general practitioners and others are specialists. Beware, since some, like a doctor in criminalistics who researched semen as evidence, are retired specialists who metamorphose into handwriting experts, because 80-90% of the work is documents with handwriting, but no semen.
- Is it a one-time event that the examiner claims as proof of universal competence? The literature is rich in case reports of solutions developed for a single situation.
To list all the issues I have addressed or all the types of examinations, services and testing I have performed would take several pages, so an alphabetical sampler will illustrate the matter:
Alterations, deletions and additions; anonymous notes; bankruptcy cases; bomb threats; case law research; checks; consulted by other examiners; court papers allegedly falsified; cut-and-paste documents; declarations and affidavits under oath; divorce and family law cases; electrostatic detection of indented writing; ethical issues; financial documents; graffiti; health factors affecting handwriting, including illness, medications and street drugs; historical documents; initials; infrared and ultraviolet; ink testing; logs and other writings in sequence; marks, such as signing with an X; medical records; notarizations of disputed authenticity; numerals; obliterations and decipherment of texts; photocopies; photographs; police records, when authenticity is questioned; postal indicia; probate and trust documents; real estate records of various kinds; and a couple dozen or so of foreign languages and scripts.
I can offer a critical and technical assessment of any work product from any opposing document examiner whom you suspect of having offered an incomplete, incompetent or erroneous opinion.
The following discuss aspects of some particularly interesting cases:
A Case of Borrowing from Oneself
Foreign Scripts: An Alleged Chinese Suicide Note
At Least the Signature was Genuine
Opposing the Recycling of a Poor Opinion