Therapist Dr. Frank Pittman believes virtually all cheaters deeply regret straying.

“Infidelity is the most devastating crisis for a family,” said Pittman, one of more than 200 speakers at the three-day conference at the Marriott Marquis. “It creates an atmosphere of simmering anger, secrets and dishonesty,” he says.

Some estimates suggest half of divorces involve infidelity. But Pittman, an Atlanta psychiatrist for more than four decades, says couples can take preventive steps. Here are some pointers…

The Florida Department of Financial Services has released its annual “Top-10 Fraud List,” summarizing 10 of the costliest or boldest securities, finance and insurance fraud scams investigated by the DFS Division of Insurance Fraud and resulting in convictions in the fiscal year that began July 1, 2005 and ends June 30.

Since last July DIF has made 740 arrests and won 560 convictions. Convictions are up 70 percent over the previous year and jail time is up more than 25 percent, according to Tom Gallagher, Florida’s CFO. The 10 cases on the list represent nearly $15 million in fraud. The list is being released as part of Insurance Fraud Prevention Week in Florida, which continues through June 26.

Enterprise Strategy Group research estimates that 46% of organizations went through an electronic discovery event in the past 12 months. 77% of those discoveries required organizations to produce e-mail. Amongst all the ImClone, Enron, and [enter your high profile corporate scandal here], we must realize that 1 out of every 2 corporations have to sift through IT systems, messaging applications and back up tapes in response to a regulatory or legal discovery request.

Is it not enough that IT has to manage all the applications and supporting systems that create the data? Now IT must lend in-house attorneys a helping hand when dealing with the latest lawsuit.

E-discovery may be the latest plague to hit the business community. Imagine being sued and then receiving a discovery request for all of the electronically stored information involved in a particular transaction or a particular employment issue.This could include all of the information on the company’s computers, laptops, scanners, fax machines, personal digital assistants, pagers, cell phones, storage discs, backup tapes and CDs.

Love thy neighbor but not before checking their backgrounds: The gumshoes at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation set a new record in May for most background-check requests from the public in a single month.

The TBI began offering the in-state criminal record check service, at $29 a pop, in 2004 as a means to offset budget cuts. To date, 35,352 requests have been filed.

Searching for data relevant to business litigation cases used to involve a team of lawyers spending long hours sifting through boxes of documents around a conference room table. Within the past three years, that process has been changing.

These days you’re more likely to find attorneys clicking mice in front of computers reviewing volumes of electronic documents – a task that has become even more laborious, more time-consuming, and more costly than the old ways.

The June 13 Column One — “He’s No Angel, He’s a P.I.” — holds out exceptionally bad behavior in the private investigative profession as though it’s the rule. This, coupled with government allegations made in the Anthony Pellicano prosecution, foster an unfortunate belief that most private investigators are sleazy egomaniacs who care only for the almighty dollar.

At the same time, honest, hardworking professionals, 80% of whom are retired law enforcement officers, work day and night at the not-so-glamorous tasks of finding deadbeat dads to serve them with court papers to enforce child support, uncovering fraudulent insurance claims and doing all the seemingly mundane, everyday chores that are necessary to keep our system of justice afloat.

A few years ago I did a short stint in the US offices of a Japanese company. I worked with a woman that had been with the company for nearly 15 years, and she never threw anything out. Drove me insane. I can’t stand clutter, and so I tend to throw away anything that doesn’t have an immediate use. She was certainly my alter-ego, never throwing anything out, even communication from when she first started with the company.

Turns out, she was right and I was wrong. Newly released e-discovery rules leave a lot of questions unanswered about how long a company is responsible for keeping electronic communications. The length of time that a company is responsible for providing such communications is left to be determined at the time that a civil suit is filed. Hmmm…

Failure to comply could be costly

New rules for electronic discovery of documents in civil cases go into effect in December — and they could cost users millions or even billions of dollars if they fail to comply.Last September, the Judicial Conference of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure recommended changes that force companies involved in a civil lawsuit to sit down and hammer out what records are fair game for electronic discovery.

In general, the resulting 300-plus page document describing the new e-discovery criteria says that companies involved in civil litigation must meet within the first 30 days of a case’s filing to discuss how to handle electronic data. The discussion must encompass retention practices, the types of records required and their electronic format, as well as what is considered “accessible” data, said John Bace, an analyst at Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn.

Failure to comply with the new rules could be costly.

How you strategize at the start of your divorce can save you and your children from the hassle of a Child Support Enforcement.

Child support enforcement, while it can help ensure that you get the money you need from an ex-partner or ex-spouse to help you support your children, can also be expensive and difficult for both you and your children. Child support enforcement can by avoided from the very beginning by making divorce and child support arrangements as water-tight and as amicable as possible. If you and your ex-partner agree to a consistent plan, there is simply a better chance that both of you will actually stick to the plan. This will not only create less friction but will also ensure that the child support keeps arriving. According to experts, there are several ways that you can help your child get the support they need, right from the beginning: read more »

• Group for Private Investigators
• Group for Process Servers