Optimum
The Fitted-In Project only conducts casework by providing consultancy. It is provided on the following basis. Clients must provide a dossier of their cases in the format required by us to assess whether we can help. Our consultancy is unique in that we understand the importance of an integrated approach to forensic sciences, crime-scene and miscarriage of justice work. We want to be effective, which requires optimum use of our time and ultimately that of clients too.
Clients may want specific things done and this may well be worth doing, but we cannot function to the best of our ability without understanding the issues as a whole. We have to understand the case first and to do that we need the dossier. It is in clientsʼ interests to provide us with what we need. If we have to prepare a dossier we will charge for our time preparing it and that will be the first thing that is done.
There will not be any exceptions. This will add to costs to clients, but it can be prevented by clients providing us with what we need in order to help them. Clients can get others to prepare the dossier for them.
The Dossier
The case dossier should begin with a short introduction of the case. The incident (crime) must be summarised. Then the police investigation must be detailed. After that the prosecution case followed by the defence case must be detailed succinctly. We then require the closing arguments and judgeʼs summing-up to be stated. Then the verdict shall be summarised – the charges having been mentioned in the introduction.
If an appeal or appeals have already occurred, that should be described next. Only then should possible lines of inquiry that clients think could lead to new evidence be mentioned – a separate section on forensic science can be added next. Finally, any other information that the client thinks is relevant can be detailed followed by a conclusion that details the entire case.
The dossier should be no longer than ten pages, but should be detailed enough for us to be able to grasp the issues in the case and apply our knowledge and abilities to it, so we can assess whether we can help. If clients do not help themselves by helping us to help them, we cannot assist.
What We Donʼt Want
We do not want clients to send their case papers. If we think we can assist we will let you know what we want to see. That will reduce the time spent and costs to you. We do not provide free consultancy,. Consequently, it is in clientsʼ interests not to provide paperwork that we donʼt ask for.
Conditions
Once we have read the dossier we will let you know how many hours we require to complete specific tasks. The tasks must be agreed in advance along with the time required to conduct them. All consultancy work agreed must be signed and is legally binding.
We do not provide pro-bono consultancy under any circumstances, because this is one of the ways that we fund our projects. Any requests for that will not be considered. In order to avoid disputes later, we will not conduct any work on a promise of payment in the future. There will be no exceptions, so please do not ask. There is a flat rate for our consultancy that is not negotiable. The agreed amount must be paid in advance.
Clients will receive a high high quality of consultancy from people who understand issues and have proved effective over many years.