Est. 1980 40+ Years · Washington Roots
Northwest Investigative Services has been investigating in Washington State since 1980. We locate people, map assets, and identify banking and brokerage relationships for litigation. We draw on 45 years of proprietary Northwest source data and privately sourced OSINT, and we charge published flat rates.
Every file is supervised by a named investigator you can talk to directly. Here is who they are and what each one handles.
Founder Emeritus
Accident & incident investigation since 1974
Founded the firm. A retired Washington State Patrol trooper and charter holder of a Washington private investigator license, he has investigated accidents and incidents for attorneys and insurance adjusters nationwide since 1974.
Full profile
Private Intelligence & Investigative Technology
Private intelligence, asset investigation & software development
Leads private intelligence and the litigation and asset practice. An intelligence professional and software developer who finds what a debtor has hidden, then documents it so thoroughly that opposing counsel has nothing to pull apart.
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Forensic Interviewing & Mitigation
Forensic and witness interviewing, mitigation & criminal matters
A doctorate in psychology applied to investigation. Conducts forensic and witness interviews built to hold up, and supports attorneys in criminal matters with investigation and mitigation.
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Device Forensics & Cyber Intelligence
Device forensics, cryptocurrency tracing & cyber investigations
Runs the digital side of a file. Device forensics for attorneys in civil and criminal matters, cryptocurrency tracing for asset recovery, and OSINT and darknet analysis. A former CEO, CTO, and CIO of security and intelligence firms.
Full profileField Operations
Surveillance, service of process & field documentation
Licensed field investigators who handle surveillance, service of process, and in-person documentation. Their names and photos are left off this site on purpose, for their safety and so they can keep working unrecognized.
Full profileMost litigation investigations come down to two questions: where is this party, and what can actually be reached. We answer both, and we show our work.
Current residence, telephone, employment, and known associates for parties who have moved, are hard to distinguish by name, or do not want to be found. We work the ones that came back empty from a database pull.
A documented picture of what a person or entity owns: real property, titled personal property, business interests, secured filings, judgments, liens, and bankruptcy history, with the recording data behind each finding.
Identification of deposit, securities, and merchant processing relationships to support garnishment, levy, and pre-suit collectibility work. Every request is gated on a documented, lawful permissible purpose before we begin.
Policy existence, limits, and umbrella coverage. No fee at all if we can't find the limits.
DetailBulk service backed by our own skip tracing, with diligence affidavits when service fails.
DetailIn-person witness interviews, recorded statements, records retrieval, and background research.
DetailEntity structure, beneficial ownership, principal background, and litigation history.
DetailThree things separate us from a database subscription and from the national panels most firms default to, and all three come from how the firm is set up.
We did not open a Washington branch. We started in Washington in 1980 and never left. After four and a half decades in one region, we know how records were kept here before they were digitized. You cannot buy that knowledge, only build it over time, and it is why cold files come back with leads.
Our own indexed local records and historical property data, much of it older than digitization and not carried by any national aggregator. On top of that, privately sourced open source intelligence run by people with cyber and military intelligence backgrounds. When the database returns nothing, this is what we go to next.
Our full price list is public. You don't have to call for a quote. Rates are set by what the underlying data costs to license and maintain, not by undercutting the next vendor. Financial searches carry no-hit pricing, and recurring volume moves down a sliding scale.
Anyone can buy a data aggregator subscription. The value is in what happens after the export: reconciling conflicting records, ruling out same-name subjects, confirming a finding against a second independent source, and writing it up so it can be attached to a motion.
Establish whether a defendant can satisfy a judgment before your client funds the litigation.
Locate the debtor and the reachable assets, and target garnishments and levies precisely.
Trace conveyances to relatives, shell entities, and trusts, with the recording chain documented.
Inventory holdings across entities and jurisdictions for receivers, trustees, and marital estates.
Verify who is really behind an entity, and what litigation and lien history follows them.
Serve the unserveable, find the witness who moved, and identify heirs in probate matters.
We capture the subject data, the matter, and the lawful basis for the search, and document it in the file.
You receive a written search plan with a flat fee and a delivery date before any work begins.
Records are pulled, reconciled, and corroborated. Conflicts are resolved, or flagged in the report if they can't be.
A structured report with sources and exhibits, plus a declaration of the investigator on request.
Financial account information is protected by federal law. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act makes it a crime to obtain customer information from a financial institution under false pretenses, and also a crime to request that someone else do it for you. A vendor who never asks why you need the search is putting your matter at risk.
We document a permissible purpose on every engagement, decline work that does not have one, and never pretext financial institutions. Our reports are investigative work product and are not consumer reports under the FCRA.
We would rather lose the assignment than hand you a report you can't use.
We don't take search orders through a web form. Tell us who you are and what you send, and we'll open an account. After that, assignments run directly with an investigator who knows your matters.