Digital Forensics in Miami Since 1992
GDF Miami is the South Florida forensic practice of a firm that has been imaging drives for three decades — but the reason counsel here retain us is local. Our examiners have qualified as experts in the Southern District of Florida and before the Eleventh, Fifteenth and Seventeenth Judicial Circuits, and have supported matters on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. We work from Coral Gables, in Spanish, English and Portuguese, on matters that leave the jurisdiction faster than the pleadings do.
Our History
GDF was founded in 1992, at a time when most businesses were just beginning to understand what a computer network was, and opened its South Florida practice as demand from Miami-Dade legal counsel grew. Our founders recognized early that digital evidence would become central to legal proceedings and business security, and set out to build the most capable forensic organization in the country.
Initially, our focus was cybersecurity, and we became highly proficient at both preventing and mitigating damage from cyber breaches and attacks. Over time, our forensic capabilities expanded to encompass every aspect of digital forensic analysis, from single-device examinations to enterprise-scale eDiscovery matters involving millions of documents and dozens of custodians.
Today, GDF Miami is one of the oldest and most respected firms in the industry. We've worked on every type of matter, from criminal prosecutions and civil litigation to corporate forensic matters and regulatory inquiries, in courts and jurisdictions around the world.
What Makes GDF Miami Different
Simply put, we're different because we have three decades of forensic practice helping clients deal with cybercrime at all phases, from cybersecurity protection to forensic analysis to remediation, evidence presentation, and prosecution. Our staff has real-world experience in the field and in court, in addition to full training and industry certification.
We work discreetly and in confidence. Where you engage us through counsel, our work is handled as attorney work product and our examiners take instruction from the retaining attorney, not from the client directly.
Our Coral Gables Laboratory
The South Florida practice runs out of a laboratory at 1600 Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Coral Gables, not a sales office that ships evidence somewhere else. Acquisitions, analysis and report preparation happen in the same building, which matters when a Miami-Dade judge asks who had custody of a drive between Tuesday and Friday.
The lab maintains hardware write-blockers and forensic duplicators for HDD, SSD, NVMe, SD and USB media; Cellebrite UFED, Oxygen Forensic Detective and GrayKey for handset extraction; JTAG, ISP and chip-off desoldering stations for damaged or locked embedded devices; and a Class 100 laminar-flow bench with ultrasonic de-ionization and vacuum drying for storage media pulled out of storm surge and rainwater intrusion. Evidence is held in an access-controlled, humidity-monitored store — a real consideration in a climate that corrodes exposed circuit boards in days.
Review and hosting run on segregated infrastructure with role-based access, encryption at rest and in transit, and audit logging sufficient for a defensibility challenge. For matters with foreign-custodian data subject to Brazil’s LGPD, Colombia’s Law 1581 of 2012 or Mexico’s federal data protection law, we scope collection and hosting locations with retaining counsel before anything is moved.
Working in Spanish, Portuguese and English
Roughly two-thirds of the message evidence we examine in South Florida is not in English. That is not a translation problem — it is a forensic one. Keyword lists built in English miss diacritic variants and regional idiom; a reviewer who does not read Cuban, Venezuelan or Brazilian usage will mis-code relevance and privilege on a first pass and the error compounds through the whole production.
Our examiners and review staff work natively in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. We build search terms with diacritic normalization, staff bilingual first-pass review, and produce transcripts in a form a certified translator can attest to without re-doing the extraction. For asylum and removal matters before the Miami Immigration Court, that also means message transcripts prepared so the Immigration Judge and the DHS trial attorney are reading the same record.
Four-County Field Response
We deploy across Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties for on-site acquisitions: corporate offices, hotel and restaurant back-of-house systems, medical practices, port terminal facilities, and vessels alongside at PortMiami and Port Everglades on a sailing schedule that will not be held. During named-storm activations we staff the lab and the hotline continuously, because the week everyone else closes is the week the media a case depends on gets destroyed.
Certifications & Standards
GDF's examiners hold certifications from the leading forensic certification bodies in the industry. All examinations comply with Department of Justice recommended standards, NIST guidelines, and applicable court rules.
- EnCase Certified Examiner (EnCE)
- AccessData Certified Examiner (ACE)
- GIAC Certified Forensic Examiner (GCFE)
- GIAC Certified Forensic Analyst (GCFA)
- GIAC Advanced Smartphone Forensics (GASF)
- Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
- Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
- GIAC Penetration Tester (GPEN)
- Cellebrite Certified Mobile Examiner (CCME)
- CompTIA Security+ and Network+
Court & Legal Experience
GDF Miami provides expert witness testimony, prepares evidence packages, and serves as forensic consultant to both plaintiff and defense counsel. Our examiners have testified and submitted declarations in the following courts and forums:
- U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida — Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Key West divisions
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
- Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida (Miami-Dade), including the Complex Business Litigation Division and the Family Division
- Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of Florida (Broward County)
- Fifteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida (Palm Beach County)
- Florida district courts of appeal
- Executive Office for Immigration Review — Miami Immigration Court and the Krome Service Processing Center
- Federal admiralty proceedings under Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(h) and the Supplemental Admiralty Rules arising from vessels calling at PortMiami and Port Everglades
- FINRA, AAA, JAMS and ICC arbitration panels seated in Miami
- Condominium election and recall arbitrations before the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation
- Courts outside Florida where the firm’s national practice has appeared, including federal districts in New York, California and Texas
What qualifying here actually requires
Florida codifies the Daubert standard at Fla. Stat. § 90.702, and South Florida judges apply it to digital evidence with real rigor. An examiner who cannot explain, on cross, why a write-blocker was used, how a hash was verified, and what a gap in an acquisition log means will not survive the hearing. Our reports are written to be read by the judge who will rule on the motion — acquisition methodology, tool versions, verification hashes and limitations stated plainly, with the legal conclusions left to counsel.
Industries Served
GDF Miami has handled matters in virtually every industry sector. Our clients include organizations in:
- Financial services and banking
- Healthcare and medical systems
- Government and defense
- Technology and telecommunications
- Aerospace and manufacturing
- Legal services (law firms of all sizes)
- Energy and utilities
- Retail and e-commerce
- Education and research institutions
- Insurance and real estate
Talk With an Examiner
Three decades of experience, court-proven methodology, and a team of certified analysts ready to look at your matter.