Here’s the short version:

• The litigation record showed large numbers of systems that were not searched, devices that could not be accounted for, and a workstation that was reported as ‘dead’ shortly after my request.
• The production showed thousands of missing text messages that were never provided.
• An officer’s trial testimony differed from what I recorded, but the court declined to admit my recording.

I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

There were significant professional overlaps within the courthouse, which influenced my strategic choices — including filing a motion for recusal.

And me? After I won the case, I got a check delivered overnight when I offered to drop the appeal. Since when does a government agency write a check for tens of thousands of dollars, on the spot, and overnight it an hour later to avoid a trial? Given the court’s findings, their decision made sense.

I feel like I got graduate level education in the court system through blood, sweat, and tears (actually, no blood, but there was lots of sweat and tears). And this wasn’t some podunk court. It was the largest superior court in the state.

Why am I telling you this?

Because if you work in DF/IR, investigations, or incident response, you already fight the same battle. Different names. Different cases. Same tactics, processes, and procedures. And dealing with the same people. They have different names, but they are the same people.

The truth is, procedure beats truth every time. If your documentation isn’t airtight, someone else will rewrite the story for you, and they’ll do it in the name of “process.”

That’s what this webinar, Fighting City Hall, is really about. It’s not about politics or bitterness or bragging about winning a case.

It’s about how to build an investigative record that survives when everything else gets conveniently forgotten or the entire system is against you or your case. It’s about protecting your reputation when you are attacked on the stand on the record with misquoted and mischaracterized statements used against you.

• I wasn’t just filing paperwork. I did everything a licensed attorney would’ve done and was held to the same standard. 
• I drafted every pleading and motion, wrote and answered discovery, handled meet-and-confers, and argued at evidentiary hearings.
• I submitted and challenged evidence, deposed and was deposed, cross-examined and was cross-examined.
• I researched case law, built timelines, prepared exhibits, and stood alone at counsel’s table in a courthouse full of people who assumed I’d fold.
• Every principle I teach, clarity, precision, documentation, logic, was stress-tested in real time, under oath, under deadlines, and under pressure.
• The court didn’t care that I wasn’t a lawyer. The judge warned she’d hold me to the same standard and I met it.
• I didn’t use AI because (1) there was no AI at the time but if there was AI at the time , (2) for the love of everything that is good and holy, don’t use AI for legal documents!

The Webinar

“Fighting City Hall: DF/IR Lessons from a Pro Se Plaintiff”

Wednesday, Nov 12 • 11:30 a.m. MT

Two signed copies of my book, DFIR Investigative Mindset, given away live

Free + 48-hour replay

Register here  → https://www.suspectbehindthekeyboard.com/fighting-city-hall-dfir-lessons-from-a-pro-se-plaintiff 

I’ll walk through what actually happened, what I learned, and what every investigator should take away from it:

• How “good faith” kills accountability
• How to write reports that survive cross-examination
• Why your documentation is the only thing that matters once the lawyers show up
• How words you wrote a decade earlier will be used against you
• And it’s not what you know; it’s what you can prove

You don’t have to sue a government agency to learn these lessons. You just have to want your work to survive the people who’d rather it didn’t.

Register here  → https://www.suspectbehindthekeyboard.com/fighting-city-hall-dfir-lessons-from-a-pro-se-plaintiff 

If you know where you can get this topic from someone who does DF/IR and went through the entire legal system and won, let me know! I want to take that class!