James Acevedo is a private investigator.

What’s an average day look like for you?

On an average day, our caseload could go from insurance fraud through risk assessments to doing vulnerability assessments for various companies. The good thing about this profession is that it is a growing profession. We are providing services to a diverse group of people and industries. You’re really helping people.

As a private investigator, we can cross the borders and not have any problems. The only thing that limits us is the laws itself. The types of investigations you’d be working on is mostly surveillance. You’d be out there watching a potential target or a person who claims that they’re hurt, and you find out if they’re hurt.

What are some of the common misconceptions of being a private investigator?

Some of the common misconceptions are that we only chase lonely housewives and husbands. And that all investigators are former police officers who couldn’t hack it. And that’s not true. This is a professional industry and has become a professional industry in the past twenty years. It’s really changed.

What are some of the characteristics you have to have as a private investigator?

You have to have that sense of right and wrong and always wanting to uncover the truth. And always wanting to know what’s going on around you. It’s a lot of fun when you work an investigation from beginning to end and you solve the case. You get such a sense of well being. It’s great! To me it’s something that’s really satisfying. And I love it.

There’s no other industry out there that offers the type of flexibility and freedom. For a person that’s looking for excitement and a person who is going to keep them constantly thinking and constantly on their feet…this is the best industry to be in.

Does a person need gun training to be a private investigator?

Because we carry a firearm, we try to practice as often as we can to maintain proficiency. You have to qualify once a year for training. You have to fire the gun at least one time a year. But we encourage our investigators to practice as often as possible so you’re proficient and you know what you’re doing with it.

Why should someone become a private investigator?

This industry has a huge need for quality people. It’s not an easy industry to get into. There’s a good ol’ boy network there. You have you to be a former police officer, or military, or government or something. You could work as a police officer for twenty years, and that doesn’t make you a security expert or an investigations expert. It’s that real world experience. I’ve worked with people who have retired from being a police officer after thirty years. And all they did was drive in a patrol car and write parking tickets. That doesn’t that make them an investigations expert.

If there is a good ol’ boy network, what’s the best way to get into this industry?

The best way to get into the industry is to find someone who is looking for a trainee and work with them. You have to stick with. In regards to education, they should really specialize in something. A criminal justice doesn’t hurt, but you need to apply it to your industry. A criminal justice degree is a great degree to have if you’re going into law enforcement.

What advice do you have to become a private investigator?

Get your experience. Get your hours in. Get more training and education because it will help. And don’t give up. They’ll be times where you’ll ask yourself why you’re doing it, and there will be other times when you’ll know exactly why you’re doing it. You have to take the good with the bad, because this industry does have a lot of bad in it. The only reason why I’m successful in this industry is because I’ve stuck with it.

Lonnie Williams Jr. never looked at law school as a fall back option.  To him, becoming a lawyer was a dream.  That attitude has propelled him to the pinnacle of his profession.  

I was the first African American lawyer in Phoenix in a large firm.  I became a partner, which means I had an ownership in the firm.  I remember some friends gave me a party.  There was an inscription on the cake that indicated that point four percent (0.4%) of partners in large firms were African American.  So not even one percent.  Less than one half of one percent.  That’s probably one of the most disappointing things about my profession.     

I decided I wanted to be a lawyer in high school. Only because it was exciting.  I enjoyed it.  I liked the law.  Becoming a lawyer was my goal from that point on.  

My junior and senior year of high school, I was all-state in football both years.  I got a football scholarship to the U of A.  So that was my ticket to education.   But I realized early on in my college career that athletics was not something I could do.  At that level, I wasn’t as good as I thought I was.  I realized that a football scholarship wasn’t how I was going to get through college.  

Towards the end of my freshman year, I sat down and read my scholarship.  I mean read the document.  I found that if I started the school year with my scholarship, I could stop playing football and keep my scholarship the whole year.  So I quit playing football one month into my sophomore year, but had another year on scholarship.

I financed my last two years of college by tutoring athletes at the U of A.  They were my friends, so it was fun.  When I got to be a junior, I started looking at law schools and took all the tests.  I didn’t know what to expect, and to my surprise, I got accepted into Yale Law School .  

It was a big leap, a big difference going from being a kid in Tucson to going to Yale Law School to study with students whose parents I’d heard of.  I didn’t realize people could be as rich, or as smart as some of the people I went to law school with.  The diversity in the situations probably benefited me more than the actual education.  I went to Yale Law School for three years.  Towards the end of that period I really wanted to stay back east, but I could not deal with the cold.  So I accepted a job in Phoenix , Arizona . 

Now, I am a partner at Quarles & Brady.  I consider myself a dispute resolver.  When these people actually go to court, I try civil cases in front of juries, over an issue usually involving businesses.  But I also do a lot of work outside of court trying to keep people out of court.  Because once you get into court, no one is a complete winner.  And it’s very expensive.  So I try to resolve disputes businesses and individuals have, and if we can’t resolve it, we take it to a jury and let them decide them. 

To me, it’s a great way to make a living.  Other people hate it though.  They don’t like confrontation.  They don’t like controversy.  I enjoy the challenge of convincing people that I’m more ‘right.’  When I say you have to convince somebody, it means that you take the facts that you have and you put on the best light possible.  That doesn’t mean you lie.  It doesn’t mean you argue. You have to be able to convince a judge or your own client that what you’re saying makes sense based on the facts you’re dealing with.      

Quite frankly, to get to where I am, it’s been a lot of hard work.  You have to be a student of the law.  I remember that one of the lawyers I worked with told me that if I wanted to learn how to practice, to get an extra set of the Rules of Evidence and put it in my bathroom instead of magazines.  You read for a couple years because you have to learn it.  And you have to master it.  You have to focus on a goal and tunnel vision yourself until you reach that goal.  It’s a lot of hard work to be a lawyer.