St. Paul Forensic Evidence & Litigation Unit

Plain Terms

What the Forensic Unit Is

Let me be straight about the structure, because most law-firm "team" pages aren't. This is not a floor of staff investigators. The forensic unit is two things: a documented evidence workflow that I run on every serious file, and a bench of independent professionals the firm works with when a case calls for them — crash reconstruction, medical-records review, life-care planning, translation and interpreting.

The workflow is the constant. The consultants rotate in based on what your facts need. The thinking behind it is laid out in the Andrade Method; this page shows the machinery.

Step One

Preserve First — Evidence Has a Clock

The most important work in an injury case happens in the first days, and it isn't in a courtroom. Traffic-camera footage gets overwritten on a short cycle. A crashed vehicle's electronic data leaves with the salvage auction. Business surveillance loops over itself within days. Once any of that is gone, no motion brings it back.

So preservation letters go out early. The firm has built its two most-used preservation moves into free public tools: the camera footage preservation request builder and the vehicle data preservation letter tool. They put agencies, businesses, and insurers on written notice that the evidence must be held.

Same logic at the impound lot: if your car was towed after a crash, photograph it before it's released or repaired. The impound lot retrieval guide covers the timing and the fees.

Step Two

Collect and Reconstruct

With the perishable evidence locked down, the file gets built: crash reports, 911 records, scene photographs, witness statements, vehicle data downloads, and the complete medical record — not the summary the insurer would prefer. Where location matters, the firm's own published data comes in; the St. Paul crash pattern heatmap shows how often a "freak accident" intersection has done this before.

When fault turns on physics — speed, sightlines, stopping distance — the firm works with independent crash-reconstruction professionals who can testify to what the data shows. When damages turn on medicine, the record is built from treating providers and independent review, not adjectives. These consultants aren't employees, and that's the point: each one is chosen for the case, and their independence is what makes their conclusions carry weight.

Step Three

Organize It Into Proof

Evidence that can't be found on demand might as well not exist. Everything lands in a case chronology — every treatment date, every photo, every letter — so the demand package an insurer receives reads like the trial exhibit list they'd face if they refuse to be reasonable. That's what changes negotiations: not louder arguments, better records.

Clients feed the same system. Photos, bills, and documents go through the private evidence upload tool rather than a text thread, so nothing lives only on one phone.

Why You Can See All This

Why These Tools Are Public

Preservation deadlines don't wait for a signed retainer, so the tools this unit uses are published free on this site. Use them today, whether or not you ever call. If you do call, you'll be talking to the person who runs this workflow — and the earlier that starts, the more evidence there is left to work with.