Format
No parade of speakers
Nobody presents and disappears. Faculty work the tables, take notes, and stay for the argument.
Presented by WALI
Case No. WALI-26-1023 · Registration open
TRADECRAFT
Everything they left out of the manual.
The WALI Investigative Tradecraft Conference. Three days in Seattle where the methods that never make it into writing get handed across the table — from the investigators who learned them the hard way.
11
Saturday sessions
1
Table
3
Days
0
Refunds requested
// Why be in the room
The best of this job was never written down.
It lives with the people who worked it out on their own — and most conferences are built so those people never have to say a word. Ours is built the other way around. Hover the bars: sources, methods, the workaround that cracked it.
Scale
No back row
Small enough that sitting quietly isn’t an option, large enough that you’ll meet someone new every hour.
Output
Monday-ready
Every session ends in something you can use: a source, a workflow, a name, a script for the call you’ve been avoiding.
Foresight
Design the 2030 practice
Sunday, we map where the work is going — emerging specialties, the threats to the trade, the openings nobody’s claimed — and draft how we want to be working when it arrives.
// The board
Three days, pinned.
Friday opens the file. Saturday works it. Sunday decides what happens next.
Fri · 10/23 · 6:30 PM
The Intake
Networking with one rule: arrive with an open question, leave with three people working it.
- Welcome reception
- Mentor and mentee pairing
- First-timers welcomed by name
Sat · 10/24 · All day
Open File
Breakfast, then a day that moves — keynote, master classes, and a choice that gets you out of the building.
- Eleven sessions, no filler
- Live surveillance exercise, downtown
- Lightning roundtables with every speaker
- Three evening outings
Sun · 10/25 · Morning
The Debrief
Seven Drafting Rooms design the 2030 practice, then affinity groups put you with the people whose work looks like yours.
- Seven Drafting Rooms, one page each
- A state lawmaker in the room
- Six affinity groups
// Saturday · Open File
Eleven sessions. Zero filler.
Speakers named as they confirm. Every one closes with table work, not applause.
Keynote · Bob Guilfoyle
Undercover, on the inside
He directs undercover investigations at Humane World for Animals — long placements inside facilities built to notice strangers.
Master class
Automating OSINT with AI
Where the tools genuinely save hours, and where they quietly invent facts.
Master class · Greg Tweed
Following the Money
A modern approach to asset investigations in high-stakes civil & commercial disputes — offshore structures, hidden beneficial ownership, blockchain analysis.
Workshop
Mobile device forensics for the non-technical
What a phone can prove, what it can’t, and when to call someone who does this all day.
Workshop · Dan Phillips
Counterintelligence secrets for better OPSEC
Protecting your cases, your clients, and yourself from people running your own playbook.
Master class
Storytelling through film
A documentary filmmaker and producer on building a narrative a jury will follow.
Master class
Getting quotes that settle cases
A TV news anchor on the questions that open people up — and the ones that shut them down.
Workshop · Josh Ritts
Served: how the hard ones actually get done
A decade of tricky serves — guarded addresses, evasive agents, substitute service that survives a motion to quash. Plus the part nobody teaches: talking down a doorstep that has turned dangerous.
Choose one · limited
Live foot surveillance exercise
Team foot surveillance in the urban environment — working a target through crowds, crosswalks, lobbies and transit with a coordinated box. Most of us work alone. This is practice at the thing you can’t do by yourself.
Choose one · Mark O’Riordan
Interview technique workshop
The alternative to the surveillance exercise. Practice, not theory — you’ll be in the chair.
Workshop · speaker TBA
Mitigation: the life history nobody else will build
Capital and felony sentencing work — the records nobody pulls, the family members who won’t talk to a lawyer but will talk to you, and how a social history becomes the argument that takes years off a sentence.
Workshop · Keith Grube
Missing people on tribal lands
Jurisdiction, first calls, and working with tribal police and victim advocates — what an investigator can do, and how not to make it worse.
Panel · Business development
Building the practice
Rates, clients, subcontracting, saying no — with WALI founder Linda Montgomery, Josh Ritts, and two more to be announced.
// Sunday · The Debrief
Seven Drafting Rooms. Seven pages.
Each table takes one piece of the practice, runs it through an honest SWOT — what works, what’s breaking, what’s opening up, what’s coming for us — and drafts how we want to be working by 2030. Every room leaves one page. A state lawmaker sits in and leaves with all seven.
Drafting Room 01
Armed and licensed
Firearms rules for working investigators — what’s defensible and what’s leftover.
Drafting Room 02
The license itself
Washington’s licensing structure, reciprocity, and the barriers keeping good people out.
Drafting Room 03
Taxes and the business
Rates, subcontracting, E&O, and the unglamorous machinery of getting paid.
Drafting Room 04
Protected information
PII access, data-broker rules, and Washington’s My Health My Data Act.
Drafting Room 05
GPS and tracking
Where the law sits today, and where the next case will push it.
Drafting Room 06
Professionalism and standards
Ethics, discipline, and what the license ought to mean to a client.
Drafting Room 07 · forward
The 2030 file
The cases nobody has written rules for: deepfake authentication, AI agents acting for a client, biometric limits, satellite evidence.
// Then
Find your people.
Affinity groups sorted by how you actually work — not who signs the check. Pick at registration, move freely on the day.
Affinity
Surveillance and field operations
Mobile and static, vehicle work, the physical trade.
Affinity
Fraud and financial
Insurance fraud, asset tracing, workers’ comp, following money.
Affinity
OSINT and digital
Open-source research, social platforms, device and data forensics.
Affinity
Criminal defense and post-conviction
Mitigation, witness location, innocence work.
Affinity
Corporate and due diligence
Backgrounds, internal investigations, pre-employment, M&A.
Affinity
Human intelligence and interviews
Sources, undercover, statements — the work done face to face.
// Logistics
Where you’ll stay. What it costs.
Crowne Plaza Seattle Downtown
1113 6th Ave — walking distance to the courthouse, Pike Place, and the waterfront.
$149Per night · rate holds 3 days either side
The block closes October 9. After that it’s rack rate, if there’s a room at all.
Registration
| Phase | Member | Non-member |
|---|---|---|
| Early — through Sep 10 | $275 | $350 |
| Regular — Sep 11 to Oct 9 | $350 | $425 |
| Late — after Oct 10 | $425 | $475 |
Not a member? Join first — the member discount covers most of your dues, and it keeps working all year.
The guarantee
0
Refunds requested. Ever.
Last year we told every attendee: if you leave feeling you didn’t get your money’s worth, we’ll refund you in full. No forms, no argument. Nobody asked. The offer stands for 2026.
// Oct 23–25 · Crowne Plaza Seattle Downtown
Bring what you know.
Leave with what they know.
Registration is open and the room block is finite. Both close before the conference does.