Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 21, 2026

This website is owned and operated by McDevitt and Associates, Inc., a forensic collision reconstruction and forensic mapping practice. I am Gerald C. McDevitt, the owner of the practice, and I am the person responsible for the information described in this policy.

This policy explains what this website collects, why it collects it, and what I do with it. It is written in plain language on purpose.

Before you send case information — please read this first

Anything you send me is reviewed personally by me and held in confidence.

But the contact form and email are ordinary internet channels, not secure ones, and sending a message through them does not retain me as an expert.

The fastest first step is a telephone call: (843) 343-4542. There is no charge for it, and it lets me run a conflict check while we are talking.

Until I have been formally engaged — normally by a signed service agreement — no expert relationship exists between us. Information provided before an engagement is in place may not be protected as privileged or as attorney work product, and may be discoverable.

I also cannot check for conflicts of interest before you write. It is possible that I have already been contacted by, or retained by, another party in the same matter.

If you would rather write than call, please keep the first message to what I need to identify the matter and clear conflicts: your name and firm, the general nature and location of the incident, the date, and the names of the parties.

Please hold reports, photographs, scene data, depositions, medical records, and your analysis or case strategy until I confirm we are clear. I will then tell you how to transmit them properly. If any of the identifying detail is under seal, telephone rather than write.

What this website collects

Information you provide. If you use the contact form or email me directly, I receive what you choose to put in it — typically your name, firm or organization, email address, telephone number, and a description of your inquiry. The form does not ask for anything beyond these fields.

Messages sent through the form are emailed to me and may also be stored in the website’s database on the hosting server. The website is backed up on a schedule, and those backups are held with the hosting provider and in storage I control.

Information collected automatically. Like nearly all websites, this site runs on a hosted web server that keeps standard access logs. Those logs record information such as IP address, browser type, the pages requested, the date and time of the request, and the page that referred you. This happens at the hosting level and is used for security, spam prevention, and diagnosing problems.

Cookies and embedded content. This site uses cookies that are necessary for it to work — for example, to keep the site secure and to remember basic display preferences — and analytics cookies, described below. I do not use cookies to build an advertising profile of you.

Some pages embed content served by other companies, such as a map on the Contact page and spam protection on the contact form. Those providers may set their own cookies when the page loads. I do not control those cookies and I do not receive advertising data from them.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Some parts of the site may not function normally if you do.

Website statistics. This site uses Google Analytics, a service provided by Google, to show me how the site is used — which pages are viewed, how visitors arrived (for example, from a search engine), the general area they are browsing from, and the type of device and browser used. Google Analytics uses cookies to do this. I see this information only as totals and trends. It does not tell me who you are, and I do not combine it with anything you send me through the contact form. Google handles this data under its own privacy policy and terms. You can opt out by blocking cookies in your browser, or by installing Google’s opt-out browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

How I use this information

I use what you send me to:

respond to your inquiry
run a conflict-of-interest check before discussing a matter
provide the services you engage me to provide
keep records of who has contacted me about which matters
keep ordinary business, billing, and accounting records
keep the website secure and working

Those are the purposes for which I use it. Disclosures the law requires are addressed below.

What I do not do

Who else may see it

I have no staff. I am the only person who reads and works on inquiries received through this site, with these exceptions:

Service providers. The website host, the email provider, the spam-filtering service, and the website statistics service necessarily handle messages in the course of delivering them. Each is subject to its own privacy policy and terms, which govern what it may do with the data it handles. I do not control their practices, and I encourage you to read them.

A qualified subcontractor. On some matters I engage a qualified subcontractor reconstructionist. A subcontractor receives only the information the work requires, works under a confidentiality obligation to me, and is required to comply with any protective order applicable to the matter.

When the law requires it. I may disclose information where I am required to by law — for example, in response to a subpoena, a court order, or a lawful request from a government authority. Forensic work is litigation work, and records relating to a matter can become subject to discovery.

Where the information is held. This website and my email are hosted in the United States, and information you send is stored and processed there. If you are contacting me from outside the United States, please send your inquiry with that in mind.

How long I keep it

I keep an inquiry and the correspondence around it for as long as I need it to respond.

Once an inquiry is closed and I have not been engaged, I reduce it to what a conflict check requires — your name and firm, the parties, the matter, and the date — and I do not retain the substance of what you wrote. I need that much permanently, because I have to be able to answer the conflicts question honestly in a later case.

Case files and work product for matters I am engaged on are retained under my ordinary professional records practice, which is separate from this policy and is addressed in the engagement terms for that matter.

Security

This website is served over HTTPS, which encrypts what you submit through the contact form while it is in transit. Ordinary email is not protected the same way — it passes through servers I do not control.

Access to the site’s administrative functions is limited to me, and to a developer during active work, and is removed when that work ends.

I take reasonable steps to protect what I hold. I will not tell you that any website or email system is perfectly secure, because none is. That is precisely why the section at the top of this policy asks you to telephone before sending sensitive case material.

If information I hold is compromised, I will notify affected persons as required by South Carolina law.

Your choices

You may ask me what information I hold about you, ask me to correct it, or ask me to delete it. Use the contact details below.

I will verify who you are before responding, and I will not disclose information about a matter to anyone other than the person or firm who sent it.

I will honor deletion requests except where I am required to keep the information — for conflict checking, for an active matter, or because a legal obligation or a litigation hold applies. If I cannot delete something, I will tell you why.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under your local privacy law. Contact me and I will address your request.

Children

This website is directed to attorneys, insurers, and other professionals. It is not directed to children, and I do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has provided information through this site, contact me and I will remove it.

Links to other websites

This site may link to other websites. I do not control those sites and am not responsible for their privacy practices. Read their policies before providing information to them.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the revised version will be posted here with a new “Last updated” date. The version of this policy in effect when you contacted me governs the information you sent at that time.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about information you have sent me, go directly to me:

Gerald C. McDevitt

McDevitt and Associates, Inc.

1970 Armory Drive

Mount Pleasant, South Carolina 29466

Telephone: (843) 343-4542

Email: gerry@mda-recon.com