NYC P.I. dispenses investigative advice, information, legal marketing tips, opinions, interesting stuff... Look for the Bulletin each Monday.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Finders Keepers: Securing Witness Contact Information
From an investigator's perspective, few things can be as frustrating as trying to locate a witness a year or more post-accident.
Having conducted innumerable first contact/initial intake surveys, it is our experience that it is critical to obtain as much information on potential witnesses as early on as possible. And. to then immediately reach out to those witnesses and obtain additional contact information. Often, the starting point of any file (once the retainer is secured) is the police accident report - PAR. (For the purpose of maintaining a tight focus, and as the information is applicable to other agencies and incident types as well, we will concentrate on police department PARs) A PAR's witness information content varies from agency to agency, county to county and even intra-department. An NYPD officer may be thorough and include the witness' name and address in the PAR's witness information section. A Yonkers cop may simply jot down the witness' name and address or phone number in the body of the accident description. Outside of the occasional NYPD officer or State Trooper, there is usually no witness identification verification conducted on scene.
In any case, your firm initially has only the PAR or any info that your client may provide regarding the witness(es). A simple phone call or contact letter within a week or so of accepting a case may not only secure contact information, it begins to establish an association between the witness and your client and can facilitate cooperation down the line.
Understandably, until the issues of accident/incident circumstances, injuries, liability and potential defendants are developed, a law firm may not wish to expend additional energy or monies on non-critical activity. Our experience, however, leans us towards an ounce of prevention when it comes to securing witness information. In an increasingly mobile/transient world, more information is not only better, but necessary. A phone call or contact letter requesting additional info (such as an emergency contact, email, employer info...) can often make the difference later on in obtaining a witness statement... or not. Done correctly, this witness outreach may a) induce the witness to become a more cooperative part of the process, b) begin to imprint a more solid recall of events should testimony become necessary and c) provide additional future contact avenues.
Given the record-breaking Father's Day temperatures here in NY, we think it's fairly safe to officially declare pool season open.
And generally, pool season is a good thing.
Over the course of years of investigative experience, we've noticed that tempers tend to flare less, or at least not as quickly or as brightly, when people are wearing less clothing. We've noticed a direct correlation between the puffed chest response by men and their ability to hook their thumbs into a belt loop - no pants; no problem. Women are always afraid something will untie, fall too low or off completely and are noticeably much slower to anger in June, July and August (Western/Northern Hemisphere). And children, well, they've always understood the less clothing, less violence corollary - hence, the popularity of venting through snowball fights in the winter when they are suited up head to toe. The above text and video are simply introductory light-asides to a very serious subject. The real issue is promoting and ensuring pool safety.
According to data (compiled from various federal agencies and industry monitoring organizations), in a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools in the United States. (In a country with 6 million pools, this means that roughly 550 children under the age of ten drown each year.)
Below please find the full NYDOS amended text (12/14/2006) version of NYCRR Title 19 re: pool alarms. Feel welcome to contact BNI for our post pool/water-event checklist. There are often many variables involved in pool-related incidents. Our checklist has been developed over more than a decade of conducting these types of investigations.
TITLE 19 (NYCRR)
CHAPTER XXXIII - STATE FIRE PREVENTION & BUILDING CODE COUNCIL
SUBCHAPTER A - UNIFORM FIRE PREVENTION & BUILDING CODE
1221.3. Swimming pool alarms. [amended text 12/14/2006]
(a) Purpose. Paragraph (b) of subdivision (14) of section 378 of the Executive Law, as added by Chapter 450 of the Laws of 2006, requires that the New York State Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code (the Uniform Code) provide that any “residential or commercial swimming pool constructed or substantially modified after the effective date of this paragraph (December 14, 2006) shall be equipped with an acceptable pool alarm capable of detecting a child entering the water and of giving an audible alarm.” The Introducer’s Memorandum in Support of Chapter 450 states, in pertinent part, that “drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related deaths in children between the ages of one and fourteen nation wide, and the third leading cause of injury-related deaths of children in New York. . . . (T)echnological advances have produced several different types of pool alarms designed to sound a warning if a child falls into the water. When used in conjunction with access barriers, these alarms provide greater protection against accidental pool drownings.” This section and section 1220.5 of Part 1220 of this Title are intended to implement the provisions of Executive Law section 378(14)(b).
(b) Definitions. The following terms shall, for the purposes of this section and for the purposes of section 1220.5 in Part 1220 of this Title, have the following meanings:
(1) Approved. Approved by the code enforcement official responsible for enforcement and administration of the Uniform Code as complying with and satisfying the purposes of this section and section 1220.5 in Part 1220 of this Title.
(2) Commercial swimming pool. Any swimming pool (as defined in paragraph (4) of this subdivision) that is not a residential swimming pool (as defined in paragraph (3) of this subdivision).
(3) Residential swimming pool. A swimming pool (as defined in paragraph (4) of this subdivision) which is situated on the premises of a detached one- or two-family dwelling; a multiple single-family dwelling (townhouse) not more than three stories in height; a one-family dwelling converted to a bed and breakfast; a community residence for 14 or fewer mentally disabled persons, operated by or subject to licensure by the Office of Mental Health or the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities; a one-or two-family dwelling operated for the purpose of providing care to more than two but not more than eight hospice patients, created pursuant to Article 40 of the Public Health Law, and defined as a hospice residence in §4002 of said Law; a manufactured home; a mobile home; or a factory manufactured dwelling unit.
(4) Swimming pool. Any structure intended for swimming, recreational bathing or wading which contains or which is designed to contain water over 24 inches (610 mm) deep. This includes in-ground, above-ground and on-ground pools; indoor pools; hot tubs; spas; and fixed-in-place wading pools.
(5) Substantial damage. Damage of any origin sustained by a swimming pool whereby the cost of restoring the swimming pool to its before damaged condition would equal or exceed 50 percent of the market value of the swimming pool before the damage occurred.
(6) Substantial modification. Any repair reconstruction, rehabilitation, addition, or improvement of a swimming pool, the cost of which equals or exceeds 50 percent of the market value of the swimming pool before the repair, rehabilitation, addition, or improvement is started. If a swimming pool has sustained substantial damage, any repairs are considered to be a substantial modification regardless of the actual repair work performed.
(c) Pool alarms. Each residential swimming pool installed, constructed or substantially modified after December 14, 2006 and each commercial swimming pool installed, constructed or substantially modified after December 14, 2006 shall be equipped with an approved pool alarm which:
(1) is capable of detecting a child entering the water and giving an audible alarm when it detects a child entering the water;
(2) is audible poolside and at another location on the premises where the swimming pool is located;
(3) is installed, used and maintained in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions;
(4) is classified by Underwriter’s Laboratory, Inc. (or other approved independent testing laboratory) to reference standard ASTM F2208, entitled “Standard Specification for Pool Alarms,” as adopted in 2002 and editorially corrected in June 2005, published by ASTM International, 100 Barr Harbor Drive, West Conshohocken, PA 19428; and
(5) is not an alarm device which is located on person(s) or which is dependent on device(s) located on person(s) for its proper operation.
(d) Multiple pool alarms. A pool alarm installed pursuant to subdivision (c) of this section must be capable of detecting entry into the water at any point on the surface of the swimming pool. If necessary to provide detection capability at every point on the surface of the swimming pool, more than one pool alarm shall be installed.
Talking To The Most Important Cop At The Precinct - The TSO
For personal injury attorneys, generally, the most important cop at any precinct is the TSO - the Traffic Safety Officer.
Data for New York City indicates that 26.7 percent of total statewide annual traffic fatalities, and 43 percent of total statewide crash injuries occurred within city limits. In an effort to reduce fatalities, injuries, property damage and overall costs associated with motor vehicle crashes in New York City, the New York Police Department (NYPD) developed TrafficStat in 1998. Modeled after the highly successful crime-reducing system, CompStat, the objectives of the NYPD's TrafficStat program are to:
A - Identify locations throughout the city where crashes are most likely to occur
B - Design an effective crash analysis program to determine the primary factors that contribute to traffic crashes at these locations
C - Develop effective countermeasures to correct hazardous conditions
D - Implement a public information and education campaign, to help the public avoid traffic dangers and crash risks.
The first step though, in any accident investigation, especially one suspected of having occurred in an accident -prone location is to talk to the local precinct's Traffic Safety Officer (TSO). The TSO generally has more direct knowledge and information regarding the precinct's traffic "hot spots" than any other officer assigned to that specific house. We also suggest calling before 2 p.m., weekdays, regardless of the PD or precinct involved.
Below please find the direct phone numbers to the Queens NYPD TSOs (except where so noted, wherein the main precinct number is then provided). (For Albany PD, the main TSO's number is 518/458-5676.) (Also let us know if you would like TSO info from other boroughs.)
Being Number One: Your Firm on Page 1 of Google - Part II
In this week's final segment of our two-part series on SEO - Search Engine Optimization, we'll continue by concentrating on the advice that...
Less is More
Although the temptation is great - to a large degree we've all been taught that more is often better - DO NOT repeat your keywords (the words potential clients input into search engines to find an attorney) too often in your visible text. The formula is simple - your keywords should account for no more than 3 - 7% of the total word count for the entire displayed page.
For more to specifics on site-pushing tools - such as anchoring text and numerous "under-the-hood" methods, there are numerous online tutorials. Have your IT guys go to our personal favorite: http://www.seo-guy.com/seo-tutorial/seopreparation.html.
The Most Important Part of Getting on Page 1
To understand this you first must understand something called "PageRank" ...PageRank is a slick term Google came up with that is exactly as it implies: a system of ranking page popularity on a 1 - 10 scale. For example - Google's Home page is a PageRank (or "PR") 10. EBay home page is a PR 9. Amazon is PR 10. MySpace home page (on the surface this is surprising, but read below) is a PR 7.
By way of brief explanation, PageRank is not a ranking of the entire SITE. It's a literal ranking of the PAGE you're looking at (That MySpace is PR 7 should make more sense now. The majority of MySpace viewers don't go to MySpace's home page when they sign in, but rather, to their own home pages).
Okay - so this page ranking tells us who's hot and who's not. Obviously you want to your site to be on the "hotter" end of things - so what's the single most important thing you can do to start that process rolling? In a word - Backlinks.
For Google to determine and set the importance of your site, it must first find it It does this search with little bots called "Spiders". Spiders find sites through "backlinks" and backlinks, simply defined provide "links" from one page to another. When you've received a link from another site or page to your site or page - be sure that the link being proposed has a PageRanking (PR) of 5 or more. They higher the ranking, the more affluent the link and it raises your site's profile. Google's spiders will have already indexed the high-ranking link and thereby raise your site's visibility.
The solution is simple but it takes a bit of doing... Get as many sites to link to your site as possible - and put 80% of your efforts into the few % that have PR rankings of 5 or higher. (Note: STAY AWAY from "Link Farms". These are companies that have a high ranking page and will try to sell their backlink to you. Google is way ahead of the game on this little number. Save your money and reputation - paid links are as valuable as fools' gold.)
Google Changing the Rules again...Black Hat/White Hat and Al Gore Rhythms
Now just when we had page ranking somewhat understood, Google has just changed the rules again. In an effort to remain number one, Google has to contend with Black Hat SEO sites. In a nutshell, Black Hat normally refers to a type of hacker - but these days it's largely changed to anyone who sets up a website to exploit loopholes in Google's relevancy algorithm (the tracking methods used to determine which words traffic better and more often ). Google has made its search algorithm friendlier to sites that have question-answering headlines as opposed to just keywords. For example - if someone put in the search term "Where can I find an attorney skilled in representing one-eyed pirates in Freeport?" The pages (still taking pagerank into account) that will be shuffled to the top will be those that have a headline that answers that question ("...representing one-eyed pirates in Freeport since 1708"). This is probably one of the simplest things you can change to ramp up your site's ranking. Looking through the eyes of the people most likely to be searching for your services, simply pre-emptively answer the questions they might ask in a how-to answer at the beginning.
Hopefully you will have come away with understanding page ranking and backlinks, and at the very least how your headlines draw the potential client's eyes to your site. From a potential client's eyes, an attorney on Page 1 of Google must have gotten there by being number one!
