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“There certainly has to be a compromise for lack of a better term. But yeah, I mean, you certainly don’t want to throw away the old way,
and you know, throw the baby out with the bathwater, cut your nose off to spite your face, all those cliches. They both have to work
hand in hand,” Fedor said.

As with many aspects of surveying, you have to trust the insights of competent, boots-on-the-ground team members as they record
important information on the fly and have appropriate technological aids in place.
Field notes as legal evidence

Perhaps the most significant consideration when it comes to field notes is that the notes aren’t just a good handoff between
professionals - they are also a key piece of evidence within the courtroom setting.

This is one of the biggest reasons why Philip Adams argues for a combination of handwritten and electronic field notes: in the legal
world, he has observed firsthand that handwritten evidence often wins.

“I spent a lot of time in court or trying to avoid being in court because I was an expert witness,” he explained.

“The field notes are the genesis of your survey. Everything is rooted in those field notes. You can have a flawless survey, but if your
field notes don’t support it, the court’s going to reject your findings. So it’s absolutely imperative to have those field notes as perfect as
possible.”
Naturally, the first hurdle is that you need to have field notes, period.

“If I don’t have the field notes, or if the other side doesn’t have field notes, whoever doesn’t have good field and usually loses. You can
sit there and talk all you want about your survey, but unless you can prove it, it’s difficult,” he said.

As far as whether electronic field notes will cut it or not, sometimes it just comes down to the judge assigned to the case and which
field note format they view as being superior. But more often than not, he’s seen surveyors who have some form of handwritten
evidence win out.

“If you’re in the field and you’re taking handwritten notes, those are more valid than the collected data that’s processed later. So there’s
an order of dignity of call, so to speak, in the chain of title of how these notes were created. So you want to get those handwritten
notes, even if it’s not specific to the details, but what day it was, who did it, and generally what were you trying to accomplish,” he said.

If you have text messages and photographs that are meticulously dated and timed, those can certainly be on par with handwritten field
notes.

In the end, it all comes down to the aura of thoroughness and trustworthiness that you can present based on your cumulative field note
data. Because we live in a very litigious society, you want to make sure you CYA: cover your ass.

Field notes role in the construction world

If there’s a surveying sector where field notes retain extra importance, it’s in the construction realm.

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