Legal Research

"GPS: A Divorce Lawyer's Best Friend"

Posted by Carolyn Elefant: "Let's say that you're a divorce lawyer and you want to help your client figure out whether her spouse is cheating. You could hire an investigator -- but that could get pricey. Or you could try to get your hands on the spouse's automated toll paying service records which would yield information on his whereabouts if he happened to drive through a toll plaza.

These days, a divorce lawyer's best friend in this kind of situation is a GPS (global positioning system), according to the Chicago Sun-Times. A spouse can legally conceal the GPS in the glove compartment or seat pocket, and depending upon the model of the GPS, track his or her partner's whereabouts in real time. With GPS units selling for less than $1,000, they're now regarded by divorce attorneys like Illinois' Enrico J. Mirabelli as "the poor man's investigator."

According to the article, Mirabelli rarely even bothers to subpoena I-Pass reports, because the GPS information is much more detailed. And he claims that GPS trackers have saved him up to 80 percent of the expense of hiring a private investigator who might sit around for 12 hours a day without witnessing any activity.

Because many jurisdictions are "no fault," evidence of infidelity won't affect division of assets. However, evidence generated by a GPS can still be used to demonstrate that a spouse is unfit where custody is an issue.

The GPS sounds like a neat trick, but how long can it work? Seems to me that as word about GPS surveillance gets out, cheating spouses will simply start checking their cars more carefully to see if a GPS is concealed."

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Source: Legal Blog Watch, 27 May 2009

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on May 28, 2009 (boomark / email).