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Hi, I'm Matthew Harris, Chief Attorney here at Matthew Harris Law. Unsurprisingly many cases these days are won or lost based on text messages, social media, and other solely digital communications. Today we're gonna discuss how to set you up for success so that way THIS doesn't happen to you. Judge this is an open-and-shut case. My client has written proof of each allegation and the defendant can't deny it. Well if that's the case then offer your documents into evidence. Are these text messages? Yes Judge we have text messages. You don't have paper copies? No Judge we don't have paper copies today. Fine you'll have to unlock and turn over your cellphone then, but you won't be getting it back. He can't just take my cell phone! Judge we don't have any evidence today. Case dismissed! *gavel* In case you didn't get it from the disclaimer, this is not legal advice. We are not your attorneys unless you've met with us in office, signed a representation agreement, and we've agreed to represent you long term. Our goal for this video is to give you some guidance on text messages, not to give you legal advice. I cannot stress this enough. Trust your attorney, not internet legal videos. Okay so let's get down to the nitty-gritty on preserving text messages, although even though we're gonna discuss text messages, this applies for social media and other forms of digital communications. We're gonna discuss a little evidence first, and then I'm gonna demonstrate for you what I think is the best practice in preserving text messages in both a breach of contract case and a family law case. Here's a little evidence: For you to be able to use text messages in trial, you need to be able to show number one that they are authentic and accurate copies of the originals and number two you need to be able to identify the author. We'll discuss authentication first. Evidence that you use in trial must be authentic. That means that the evidence IS what you SAY it is. One of the obvious difficulties in authenticating text messages is because you don't want to have to turn over your cellphone simply to win your court case, so what you need is a reliable way to extract those text messages from your cell phone. the most common way of authenticating text messages is to take screenshots of the messages and then to provide testimony that the screenshots are true and accurate copies of the original messages on the phone. Where people commonly fail in court is that they only take screenshots of certain portions of the conversation and not the entire conversation itself, which then leaves it subject to debate as to whether there have been edits, deletions, or alterations. Next let's turn to authorship. Simply being able to show that a text message came from a specific phone number is simply not enough. A friend could have taken the phone and sent hateful text messages that the owner of the phone number didn't intend to send or the phone number could have been spoofed and now the person is receiving text messages from a complete stranger. However it doesn't take very much more to show authorship. All you're trying to do is tie these text messages back to a specific person. For example some courts have found that when phone calls are received around the same time as text messages and the phone calls reference the texts and the texts reference the phone calls that's sufficient in order to demonstrate authorship. It also helps if the text messages you receive from an ex-wife or an ex-husband contain information that only the ex would know. All of this is helpful in showing authorship. Let's talk preservation. As I promised I'm going to show you what I think are the best practices in preserving text messages in both of breach a contract case and a family law case. Here we have text messages between our fake client and the opposing party for what may turn into a breach of contract. I say fake because obviously we're not posting our actual clients' text messages on the Internet. As you can see there are several screens worth of text messages here so we have to be careful that we preserve all of them to demonstrate that they are authentic true and correct copies. So we start at the top and you should notice how we are careful to frame this first shot and then we take a screenshot. Here take note that we've got the name saved in the contacts under opposing party and ensured that the phone settings displays the person's phone number to demonstrate authorship. yes this actual phone number is blurred because I can't have everyone texting my poor legal secretary that helped me in creating this video so just pretend that you're looking at the whole number here next notice how we're careful to show the date and time of text messages because timing always matters this can be difficult because if you take screenshots too soon that it may simply show today or yesterday or simply the day of the week however the preference is to have the date month and year when you go to trial in a year it may be difficult for you to remember precise dates if all of your text messages just simply say today on them and not an actual date next and this is important before you move from your first screen shot take note of the last line of text on your first screenshot because we want to show overlapping lines of text this helps to authenticate the text messages and show that there are no missing messages between your screen shots then you just keep going for as long as the conversation takes place ensuring that the bottom line of text is the first line of text on the next screen shot pretty simple right okay now let's turn to a family law case which sometimes includes just a little more drama here take note that we've got the name saved in the contacts under Drake's mama now this isn't the best practice and you should use their full name for better authentication but this isn't the worst name that I've seen listed in someone's contacts just as before notice how we're careful to show the date and time of the text messages next and don't forget that this is important before you move from your first screenshot take note of the last line of text on your first screenshot because we want to show those overlapping lines of text this helps to authenticate the text messages and show that there are no missing messages between your screenshots then you scroll and be careful to frame your second screenshot notice how we've lined up that last line of text from screenshot number one as the first line of text on the screen with a lined up then we take our second screenshot there now that you understand some of the rules of evidence concerning authentication and authors and preserving text messages you're in a far better position in order to prepare your trial exhibits so that way you can achieve success in the courtroom if you found this video helpful be sure to like our page and be sure to share this video with a friend that might find it helpful as well we appreciate you watching you can find more from us here at Matthew Harris law on Facebook YouTube and Instagram thanks for watching you