Please Note: This video features the late Paul Cavonis, who passed away in 2025. Paul was a cherished member of our firm and left behind an enduring legacy of service, integrity, and compassion. With more than 30 years of experience, he was not only a skilled attorney but also a dedicated educator who created these instructional videos to help clients understand their cases, set expectations, and navigate the legal process. We continue to share his resources in his honor and for the benefit of those he served. The experienced team Paul helped build remains in place, committed to providing the same trusted guidance and personal care he was known for.

"Hello, my name is Paul Cavonis. Thank you so much for watching this video.

The purpose of this video is to talk to you about preserving electronic evidence. When I say electronic evidence, I'm talking about things like text messages, email messages, social media, direct messages. It's very important throughout your case that you preserve this evidence. If this evidence is not preserved, it can hurt your case.

Do not under any circumstances, delete any emails, text messages, or anything else stored electronically relating to your case.

Discuss those items with me and we will decide how to handle each of those pieces of evidence. Make sure your electronic devices do not automatically delete any of this information. For example, you may have on your phone a feature where text messages are deleted after 30, 60, or 90 days.

Please make sure that those functions are turned off so those messages are not accidentally deleted. If you're storing items remotely, like on the cloud, make sure that storage is secure and nothing is accidentally deleted. With regard to those items that are stored on the cloud, I would prefer that whatever is there is put on a local device like a CD or a thumb drive, so we have that and it's preserved and it is not accidentally lost or destroyed.

If you have any questions about how to preserve this electronic evidence, please make sure you talk to my office and we will assist you."