Our Process

Five steps from anonymous smear to named defendant

The order matters. Preserve before you provoke; unmask before you demand a name on a complaint. Here is how a matter typically moves.

Preserve & document

Before anything tips off the operator, we capture the sites in full — archival snapshots, screenshots, raw page source, WHOIS/RDAP and DNS records — and assemble a forensic evidence file. This is the single most time-sensitive step: content edited or deleted after a demand letter is gone, and the day-one record is what later subpoenas and motions rest on.

Day 0 · no notice to the operator yet

Demand

A cease & desist from counsel — on letterhead, with a tight response window — reaches the operator's only real artifact: the contact inbox behind the site. Anonymous operators routinely overestimate their cover; a credible legal demand has, empirically, the highest voluntary-takedown rate of any non-litigation move. In parallel we file the registrar and CDN abuse reports that build the non-cooperation record.

Day 1 · ~50% come down within 5–7 days

Unmask

If they hide, we file a Doe defamation action and serve subpoenas on the four custodians that actually hold identity: the registrar (registrant and billing), the CDN (origin IP and account-creation IP), the email provider (subscriber and recovery data), and any commercial mail-drop (USPS Form 1583 on file for a private mailbox). Convergence across those returns names the operator.

Day 7+ · identification in ~30–60 days

Remove & enjoin

With the operator identified, we move for the removal the demand letter could not force — injunctive relief, and, for individual clients, a civil-harassment restraining order (CCP §527.6) that is grantable ex parte in about three weeks. Domains can be ordered transferred or cancelled; repeat conduct becomes contempt.

Parallel track · TRO in ~21 days

Restore & monitor

Takedown is not the finish line — search results are. We pursue cached-content removals and corrected-record requests, stand up owned properties to reclaim the first page for your name, and put monitoring in place (new domain registrations, SSL-certificate transparency, name alerts) so the next attempt is caught at registration, not after it ranks.

Ongoing · so it does not come back
Two landmines we plan around from day one.  Anti-SLAPP (CCP §425.16): we plead only the unprivileged false statements, never the privileged court-record quotes.  Mediation confidentiality (Evid. Code §1119): where a related matter is in mediation, the unmasking effort is kept procedurally separate so nothing jeopardizes the underlying case.

Day one is the cheapest day to act.

The preservation step costs little and forecloses nothing. Start there.

Begin a confidential review