What Does a Private Investigator Actually Do?
A private investigator's job comes down to three core skills: watching, documenting, and researching. A licensed PI observes a subject's activities in person, turns what they see into evidence that holds up under scrutiny, and digs through official records that most people don't know how to access. Every case Watchmen's network handles draws on some combination of these three.
Our PIs are state-licensed, carry professional liability insurance, and are matched to your case based on their jurisdiction and case-type experience — never handed off to an unvetted contractor. Below is an overview of the core services; each links out to a full breakdown.
PIs handle the physical world; a separate team handles the digital one. Private investigators are trained in surveillance law and in-person evidence gathering — not digital forensics or cybercrime. If your case is about online harassment, a hacked account, or a data breach, that's handled by our dedicated cybersecurity team, not a PI.
Physical Surveillance
Surveillance is the service most people picture when they think "private investigator" — and for good reason, it's the backbone of most PI cases. A licensed investigator follows or observes a subject in public spaces, documenting where they go, who they meet, and what they do, all within strict legal boundaries. This is the standard approach for infidelity cases, insurance and workers' comp fraud, child custody disputes, and corporate misconduct.
Depending on the case, our PIs use mobile (vehicle) surveillance, fixed-point observation, covert video and photography, and open-source social media review — often in combination. Every hour of surveillance is logged, and every piece of footage is timestamped and stored in a chain-of-custody format so it's ready if the case ends up in court.
Documenting Evidence That Actually Holds Up
Watching something happen and proving it happened are two different skills. The value of anything a PI observes depends entirely on how it's documented — timestamped and GPS-verified photo/video, a detailed written activity log, a signed affidavit, and an unbroken chain of custody for every file. Without that structure, even a dead-to-rights observation can be picked apart in court or dismissed by an insurer.
Every Watchmen PI is trained to build a report the way attorneys, judges, and claims adjusters expect to see one — formatted, complete, and defensible under cross-examination. That's true whether the underlying evidence came from surveillance, a subject interview, or a record pulled from a courthouse.
Record Searches
A lot of the most useful evidence in a case already exists on paper somewhere — it just has to be found. Courthouse dockets, county recorder filings, and state agency databases hold civil judgments, property records, business filings, professional licenses, and more. Our investigators know which repository holds what, and when a record isn't digitized, they'll go in person rather than let it go missing from the file.
Record searches are commonly paired with surveillance and used on their own for asset searches, background checks, skip tracing, and building a paper trail an attorney can actually use.
See how our courthouse, county, and state record searches work →
Common Reasons People Hire a Private Investigator
Infidelity & Relationship Concerns
Discreet, legal surveillance to document the truth — see our Surveillance page.
Child Custody Disputes
Documented evidence of a parent's living conditions or behavior, admissible in family court.
Insurance & Workers' Comp Fraud
Video evidence of a claimant's actual physical activity, gathered legally and documented.
Small Claims & Civil Disputes
Locating defendants and gathering court-ready evidence — see Small Claims Investigation.
Locating Someone
Finding people who've moved, gone off-grid, or are avoiding legal service — see Skip Tracing.
Workplace & Corporate Investigations
Employee theft, HR misconduct, moonlighting, and trade secret theft — see our Business services below.
What a Licensed PI Can — and Cannot — Do
A professional investigator always works within the law. Evidence gathered outside these boundaries isn't just useless in court — it can create liability for both the investigator and the client.
Licensed PIs CAN:
- Observe and photograph/video in public spaces and from public vantage points
- Follow a subject in public without harassment or intimidation
- Review publicly available records, court filings, and business filings
- Conduct interviews with willing subjects and witnesses
- Present findings in a written, court-ready report with timestamped evidence
Licensed PIs CANNOT:
- Trespass onto private property to conduct surveillance
- Wiretap calls or intercept electronic communications without consent (varies by state)
- Access private accounts or systems without authorization — that's a cyber matter, not a PI one
- Impersonate law enforcement or government officials