Alabama Private Investigation Laws

If you hire a Private investigator who does not adhere to the laws of the state, the evidence gathered , if deemed to be illegally obtained, may not be admissible in court. This could mean that every cent you spent was in vain.

In order for the services to be legal, the investigator must be licensed in the State of Alabama . If a company advertises to preform Private Investigative services in Alabama, they must be licensed as an Investigative Agency in Alabama through the Alabama Private Investigator's Board.

Agencies that are not based in Alabama must obtain an Alabama Agency License in order to legal advertise to provide investigative services in Alabama.  however, if they have a case in Alabama the can contract with a licensed Agency in Alabama but not with a Private Investigator who is a licensee in Alabama but not licensed as an Agency. If you hire an Investigative company that is not licensed as an Agency in Alabama, even if they have an employee that is, they are in violation of the law unless their employee is licensed as an Agency or they Sub contract to an Alabama Agency.  Agency license can be verified online at the Alabama Private Investigators Board website.

Every invoice that you receive should have the Agency number of the Private Investigative Agency that is billing you. If you have hired an individual Private investigator rather than an agency , he or she must put their license number on any invoice that bills for investigative services and cannot invoice you for investigative services preformed by anyone other than themself. If you hire an Alabama agency, they must clarify on the invoice the license number of each licensee that services are being billed for n. That means that if you are being billed for the services of three investigators at one time, you should see three different license numbers.

There are few exceptions to the license requirements and they primarily refer to in house private investigators who are w-2 employees of a entity who's primary business is not Private investigations therefore would not advertise Private Investigative services to the public. An example of that is a law firm who hires an Investigator to look into cases that they are handling , that investigator would work only for that law firm and could not provide services outside of the scope of his or her duties with that firm. Large corporations also hire in house investigators for internal investigations and are exempt from the licensing laws as so long as the investigator does not advertise services outside of the scope of his/her duties with that position.

Private Investigators who work in States which have reciprocal agreements with Alabama may enter into the state and perform Private Investigative services on cases that originated in the State that they are licensed in with certain time restrictions. A licensee from a reciprocating State cannot be hired to work on a case in Alabama if the case originated in Alabama but may do work on that case in their own State if the case travels into that state. For example if a case originates in Birmingham but the activity includes travel to Atlanta, the client can hire an Investigator in Atlanta to work there but, unless that investigator is licensed in Alabama, the investigator cannot come to Alabama to resume work on the case. If the case originates in Atlanta and leads to Birmingham, an Investigator Licensed in Atlanta who was hired to work the case , can also follow it into Alabama. Investigators can never advertise .