Click here to see a sample of our Surveillance Video.

One of the important areas of investigation to many of our clients is surveillance. The proper combination of documentation and application of film can prove to be an unbeatable mix in allowing defense counsel to proceed firmly and intelligently on a given case.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then video footage of a plaintiff involved in strenuous physical activity can be worth thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings to the carrier who has elected to conduct surveillance on that individual.

While surveillance can be costly, preliminary investigation can cut down on the amount of time a field operative spends actually watching a residence or at a job site. Checks with the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles and with the Social Security Administration, coupled with discreet inquiries, allows the operative to spend less time in the field, while actually being more productive.

Surveillance is a specialized field, and for the purpose of simplification, we will categorize the various phases:

The First Phase of surveillance is what we call the preliminary stage. After analyzing a case, we proceed by checking with various credit headers, D.M.V., Social Security search, as well as checking all background information on a particular subject or entity. It is quite common that claims provide credit institutions with personal information, including employment history, which enables us to establish a work schedule.

The Second Phase of surveillance involves the "field planning stage". By this point we have the subject's schedule, and as such, we would proceed with a properly planned and documental account of our subject's daily activities.

Our investigators will always act in a manner which is beneficial to the particular character of a case, i.e. early weekday morning surveillance's are coordinated to determine active employment, and weekend surveillance's would normally center around physical and social activities.

Richard Blaise & Associates has been involved in covert surveillance of allegedly disabled plaintiffs. Time and again, our video footage of these individuals has been useful in bringing an outrageous demand by plaintiff's counsel down to a figure more in line with what is considered reasonable by the carrier professional.

In addition to conducting surveillance on allegedly disabled individuals, our office has also handled investigations for school districts who wish to uncover students living outside of the district who are attending their schools. Our work in this area of investigation has been most successful and has saved our clients a great deal of money budgeted for other educational endeavors.

Our surveillance vehicles are equipped with "state of the art" video equipment, and our operatives possess "pin hole" cameras to obtain video footage of individuals under less than ideal circumstances. Our surveillance staff is the most experienced in the industry.

Our staff is strategically located throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Nassau and Suffolk Counties, to afford the best coverage at a minimum of expense. Our reports are clear and concise, with copies provided to defense counsel if warranted. Our video is crisp and clear, and provides, whenever possible, full facial images of the plaintiff to make more identifiable in court.

Depending on the particular make up of a case, surveillance can be one of the most important aspects of an investigation. If utilized properly, we have found it to be a most successful tool for our clients, which can be the single determining factor on the outcome of a particular case.