Questioned document examiner customer-focused approach
Q9 Consulting’s focus is on customer service, communication with clients, and providing honest quality work for clients. We understand that as a forensic document examiner, also know as a questioned document examiner, our loyalty is to the evidence. We are not an advocate for a party. Our attorney clients insist on knowing the truth told by the evidence in the questioned documents. They understand it is important to prosecute or defend a case based on evidence rather than the statements from the client, or contextual bias resulting from hearsay.
Q9 Consulting employs modern video communication technology to communicate work product with clients. This form of communication of forensic document examination work product allows Q9 to show clients the results of document examination while Mike is in his office in Temecula (Riverside County) and the client is in their office.
Q9 Consulting partners with clients to deliver the best possible results shown by evidence in the case. Our science-based questioned document examiner approach includes requirements of Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and the Frye rules. These include requiring repeatability, testability and general acceptance of forensic document examination and forensic handwriting analysis methodologies.
Our Questioned Document Examiner History
Q9 Consulting, Inc. was founded by Mike Wakshull. He first studied questioned document examination in 1983. Mike has a graduate school certificate in Forensic Document Examination from East Tennessee State University, the only university in the United States to offer graduate level instruction in document examination to private questioned document examiners. The program is part of the graduate school of criminal justice.
He was an adjunct instructor at the University of Redlands and the University of California at San Diego.
As an invited speaker at the annual conference of the National Association of Document Examiners (NADE), Association of Forensic Document Examiners, and others Mike presented his research to assist in writer identification and courtroom bias.
Mike was conference chair for the National Association of Document examiners conference held in April 2012 in San Diego, CA and co-chair of the 2015 Forensic Expert Witness Association’s 2015 conference.
As a questioned document examiner Mike was an invited speaker at the World Congress of Forensics in Chongqing, China in October, 2011. He presented a paper on the effects of bias on document examiners’ opinions and a research paper on the use of statistical process control to assist with writer identification.
On July 22, 2015 Mike is spoke at the International Forensics Symposium in Washington, D.C. His topic is Use of Statistical Analysis to Assist with Writer Identification.
Our approach to questioned document examination
Mike uses both the twenty-one traditional elements of handwriting identification identified by Huber and Hedrick in their book Handwriting Identification, Facts and Fundamentals. He applies a statistically based process based on his Quality Engineering background. He uses a MiScope digital microscope, a Meiji stereo optical microscope, ESDA, and VSC80 for examination of the handwriting and questioned documents. His opinion is always based on sound fundamentals of the evidence. He is one of only a handful of forensic document examiners with graduate school training in the science of forensic document examination. Mike has provided forensic expert witness services in 23 states (Alaska, California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, Nevada. New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia), Bahrain, Canada, and Hong Kong.
Mike’s reports provide detail required by clients in order to settle cases before trial. In cases that go to trial, Q9 Consulting partners with the retaining attorney to deliver expert witness testimony in a clear and understandable manner. As a member of National Speakers Association and a university instructor Mike is comfortable presenting before a courtroom, a class or an audience.
