Manhattan
Manhattan Digital Forensics
Forensic preservation, examination and expert reporting for matters seated in Manhattan. On-site response across Midtown, the Financial District, Chelsea, SoHo, the Upper East and Upper West sides, Harlem and Washington Heights.
Manhattan coverage
Working in Manhattan
Manhattan concentrates the industries that generate the most complex digital evidence: banks and broker-dealers in the Financial District, the buy side and family offices in Midtown, media and advertising in the Flatiron and SoHo, ad-tech and enterprise SaaS in Chelsea and Hudson Yards, and law firms across Sixth and Third avenues. Almost every matter in these sectors turns on records that were never written to be evidence: Slack and Teams threads, Bloomberg and IB chats, mobile handsets, SaaS audit logs, EDR telemetry and cloud control-plane events.
GDF's Manhattan intake is at (212) 561-5860. Examiners are dispatched into the borough on a 24/7 basis for active incidents. For litigation matters, working meetings are typically held at counsel's offices in Midtown or Downtown, with on-site collections performed at custodian locations or at client premises.
Manhattan venues and custodians
Where Manhattan evidence usually sits
SDNY (500 Pearl and 40 Foley Square)
Manhattan civil and criminal matters in the Southern District: preservation, collection, processing and expert reporting scaled to the schedule set by the assigned judge.
New York County Supreme Court (60 Centre Street)
Commercial Division and general docket support: business records subpoenaed under CPLR 3120, ESI orders and, in the Commercial Division, electronic-discovery work governed by the applicable state rules and case order.
Financial regulators (NYDFS, SEC New York, FINRA)
Regulator-facing technical work for financial institutions headquartered in Manhattan: NYDFS 23 NYCRR 500 testing programs, SEC document requests and Wells submissions, and FINRA arbitration technical support.
AAA and JAMS arbitration
Reports and testimony in AAA and JAMS proceedings, with workpapers structured for opposing-expert review under the accelerated schedules typical of commercial arbitration.
Manhattan practice notes
Planning a Manhattan examination
Financial District and Wall Street matters
Financial District matters commonly involve broker-dealer and hedge-fund records: order-management systems (OMS), execution-management systems (EMS), trading-platform logs, Bloomberg and Instant Bloomberg messaging, personal devices used for business communication and, in regulated-entity matters, the surveillance records the CCO team keeps under FINRA and SEC recordkeeping rules. Preservation is scoped so the trading-side record lines up in time with the communications record, which is often the decisive alignment in FINRA arbitration and SEC enforcement matters.
Midtown corporate matters
Corporate matters can involve Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack, Teams and enterprise AI tools. Collection starts by checking which messages, audit events, prompts and responses actually exist and can be accessed under the tenant's settings, licenses and retention rules. Counsel defines the relevant discovery scope. Endpoint records may add context; preservation options and logging gaps are documented before records expire.
Chelsea, Flatiron and SoHo tech companies
Technology matters in Chelsea, Flatiron and SoHo often involve these records: GitHub Enterprise or GitLab for source, Slack for communication, Notion or Coda for knowledge, Figma for design, PagerDuty and Opsgenie for on-call records, and cloud accounts (AWS, GCP or Azure) with a wide surface of IAM permissions. Trade-secret and departing-employee matters are common here, and the work centers on reconstructing what code, what documents and what customer data the departing custodian actually touched.
Manhattan law firm collaboration
Lead counsel supplies the case schedule and preservation priorities. Confirm the intake appointment, proposed working meeting, source access and examiner availability before relying on a collection date. The preservation protocol identifies the actions already authorized, records still at risk and questions awaiting instructions; it can be refined as sources are confirmed.
Frequently asked
Common questions on Manhattan matters
How fast can an examiner get to Midtown for an incident?
Give the intake team the incident location, affected systems, access available and operating contacts. Remote preservation and any on-site visit require authorization and agreed arrangements; an examiner's arrival time is confirmed for the actual engagement.
Can collections be done at a Manhattan law firm's office?
A collection can be planned at an agreed counsel or client location when the source and authority permit it. Confirm the receiver, safe access, acquisition method and custody documentation before bringing or moving equipment.
Do you handle Wall Street matters with market data?
Yes. Broker-dealer, hedge fund and family office matters regularly involve order-management systems, trading platform logs, Bloomberg and IB messaging, and personal device data. Preservation is scoped so the trading-side records line up in time with the communications record.
Separate the trading record from account activity
For a trading, payment or professional-services dispute, identify the account and transaction systems, messaging source and authorized owner of each. Proprietary records and vendor-held chat need their own supported export and interpretation.
- An illustrative source table pairs an order identifier with a message and account event, preserving each source clock and export basis.
- A displayed quote or account login is not proof of an executed trade or individual author.
- Confirm tenant permissions, data retention, relevant date range and any source-specific analyst needed.
- The first handoff records collected and missing sources; travel, appointments and further analysis are agreed for the matter.
Talk with an examiner
Talk with the local team
Tell us where the people, devices or retaining team are located and the matter you need help with.
Since 1992 · 24/7 dispatch · Court-tested experts
Talk with an examiner
Discuss the matter and the next step.
Call to discuss timing, scope and the safest way to share information. Do not send evidence or credentials by email.
24/7 hotline: 1-800-868-8189