Everyday Heroes

Insurance: Finding an Uninsured Motorist

We had a claim in which the at-fault party had rear ended our insured. The two parties did exchange information at the scene, however never called the police to report the accident. When our insured filed a claim with us for the damages to his vehicle we attempted to subrogate the other insurance company. The other insurance company advised us that the policy had lapsed before the date of the accident. We attempted to contact the at-fault party for new insurance information however the phone number was disconnected and the mail was returned to us "return to sender". I was able to use CLEAR to find current address and phone number to give to our vendor to contact the at-fault party. They were able to contact the at-fault party, the at-fault party did not have valid insurance, however the vendor was able to set up payment arrangements. Our insured was able to be refunded their deductible and our company was able to collect the money that we paid for the damages as well! Thank you!

Found After a Year of Searching

Using CLEAR I was able to run several searches that help me locate a person we had been searching for, for over a year. With a good address we were able to serve the person and are moving the case forward.

Insurance: Uncovered Criminal History

On nearly my first use of CLEAR, after already conducting a search on one of your rivals, it was discovered the subject of the search had a federal felony criminal history. No indication of this in the prior inquiries.

Corporate: Subject found after 3 years. Job well done

Through my investigation on CLEAR, I was able to locate a subject who had been hiding for over 3 years from my client. We found through using the phone search, that he had been registering cell phones for his use in someone elses name. At that point we was able to reverse the name, get a good address for the subject and have him served. Account resolved, job well done, was the compliment I received from the company I was working for, along with a big fat bonus.

Government: Vermont Department of Corrections

In 1989, Vermont had an offender who was convicted of sexual assault on a minor. The offense involved his repeated molestation of his girlfriend's 5 year-old daughter. While on bail, he fled the state prior to sentencing. Over the years attempts were made to locate the offender to no avail. The offender was rumored to have relocated to the State of New York, or with family in Florida or Massachusetts. In 2009, the Vermont Department of Corrections continued its search of the missing sex offender through the use of CLEAR. Investigators were able to track the offender from Vermont to Texas and finally Mississippi. In September of 2010, investigators were able to pin-point the location of the offender, and with the assistance of the Hinds County Sherriff's Department the offender was apprehended. After 21 years on the run he returned to the State of Vermont for incarceration.

Law Firm: DLA Piper

DLA Piper, LLP partners with Thomson Reuters at Stand Down in San Diego

In times of war, exhausted combat units requiring time to rest and recover were removed from the battlefields to a place of relative security and safety. Today, Stand Down refers to a community-based intervention program designed to help the nation's estimated 200,000 homeless veterans "combat" life on the streets. "The program has become recognized as the most valuable outreach tool to help homeless veterans in the nation today," according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.

For the past several years, DLA Piper, LLP has teamed with Thomson Reuters to provide free legal services to Veterans in San Diego at this three-day event. Legal professionals from DLA Piper volunteer their time while Thomson Reuters provides free access to their Public Records and PeopleMap databases to help veterans locate their family members. Located in the Communications Tent, volunteers assist veterans in finding loved ones using PeopleMap and then call them for free using phones provided on site.

For many reasons, including chronic homelessness, long-term deployments and medical conditions which resulted from combat, men and women lose contact with their loved ones. PeopleMap is the resource that links our veterans with their loved ones.

So many have benefited from the alliance between DLA Piper and Thomson Reuters, but here are some particularly touching stories of Veterans that have been helped:

• Using PeopleMap, we were able to help a homeless veteran locate his sister's telephone number. He called her right away and left a message. Later that day, I noticed one of our long distance telephones ringing. Much like it is difficult to walk by a ringing payphone, I answered the call. It turns out it was the sister of this Veteran we helped earlier. She called our phones because she did not recognize the number and it was different from the number her brother had left. She told me she had not spoken to her brother in over 10 years, and if I saw him, I was to let him know that she definitely wanted to talk to him and that she would try to reach him on the number he left her. She asked what Stand Down was and once I let her know the details, she thanked me profusely for being there to support our veterans and for helping her brother find her.
• Thanks to Westlaw's PeopleMap, we were able to quickly locate the contact information for a veteran who reached out to his daughter. After he talked to her for a long time, he told us that he had not spoken with her in over 16 years. He was thrilled to reconnect with her and thanked us repeatedly.
• Another memorable moment was one of our attorneys used PeopleMap to help a man locate his twin sister who he had not spoken to in almost 20 years. The attorney located the veteran's twin sister, and he was able to call her on the phones we provided. They spoke for over an hour, and she was able to give him contact information for other family members. When he hung up the phone, this burly man, easily over 6 feet tall, had tears running down his face. He could not thank us enough for finding his lost loved ones and for giving him the means to make immediate contact with them.

Those of us in the San Diego office of DLA Piper are so grateful to utilize the power of Westlaw PeopleMap to quickly and accurately locate public record information to help our homeless veterans.

Corporate: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

As a direct result of the information CLEAR provided to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, a child missing since 2002 was located and the 8-year investigation came to a successful close.

In November 2002, a 15-year-old child was last seen in Las Vegas, NV. The child and her mother were homeless and the child was permitted to live with a family friend. When the mother went to visit in November 2002, she discovered that the family friend had packed up her home and moved with the child. At this time, the mother reported the child as missing. In June 2005, there was a house fire in Arizona at the residence of the family friend. When firefighters responded, they rescued the family friend and her grandsons, but there was no mention of the missing child. In 2007, there was another fire at the family friend's house where it was then discovered that she and her husband were severely abusing their grandsons. At this time, the grandsons mentioned the missing child. Law enforcement conducted additional interviews with the family friend who said she did bring the missing child with her to Arizona but that she then through her out of the house.

In 2008, law enforcement contacted the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to assist in locating this missing child. NCMEC facilitated in collecting familial DNA, but no matches were found when it was compared to Jane Does. The Case Analysis Unit (CAU) also searched for the missing child using public records databases, social networking sites and many other resources. In July 2009, the Analyst uncovered an ID card for the missing child in New Orleans, LA. Law enforcement had an officer respond to the address on the ID card but found that it was a motel and that the missing child was not currently residing there.

In March 2010, the Analyst conducted another public records search for the missing child and located a new New Orleans address which only surfaced in CLEAR. After further research, it was found that the address was associated with a homeless shelter. The child's new address information was provided to law enforcement who responded and discovered that the missing child was living at the shelter with two children she had given birth to since her disappearance in November 2002. Law enforcement confirmed her identity and welfare. As a direct result of the address found in CLEAR, the child was located and the 8-year missing child investigation was finally closed.

Corporate: Recovering Defaulted Loan Money

CLEAR allowed me to research an individual who borrowed money from my business, defaulted on the loan because he stated that his business shut down, and then refused to return phone calls. Through CLEAR, I was able to find contact information for him, and found that he used the money to open up an identical business under a new name. We are now negotiating a settlement.