A Brooklyn Daily Eagle article, Lost and Found: Investigative Attorneys Specialize in Finding the Missing, features two Brooklyn Law School alumni, Charles-Eric Gordon, Class of 1979, and James Renken, Class of 2007. Gordon serves the legal profession and the business community as “investigative counsel”, concentrating in locating missing heirs, beneficiaries, shareholders, witnesses, defendants and other absentees, especially those missing for an extended period of time and/or about whom little information is known. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Society of Professional Investigators and is a member of the World Association of Detectives, the National Law Enforcement Associates and other investigative organizations. Renken has been working as a Systems Engineer at Brooklyn Law School since February 2008 and has received recognition from the Brooklyn Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association‘s Empire State Counsel program for his pro bono service for indigent clients in Brooklyn.
Earlier this month, they teamed up to teach a Continuing Legal Education class “Tracing Missing Persons” which the Brooklyn Bar Association’s Volunteer Lawyers Project sponsored. The summary of the session said that in the course of practicing law, many attorneys encounter situations in which necessary parties to an action or witness cannot readily be located, even through the use of common databases. The session had a “Question and Answer” period during which actual missing person situations were discussed and for which Gordon and Renken offered guidance on how these particular problems may be solved. The BLS Library has in its collection How to Find Anyone Anywhere by Ralph D. Thomas (Call # HV6762.U6 T36 2001), an encyclopedia on locating missing persons with little known techniques usually known only by the pros with years of experience and a highly valuable manual for any type of skip tracing or people locating.