The wages of fear pay snooper man.

• Position: Jim Weaver, Investigative Resources Inc., Winston-Salem, North Carolina

The wages of fear pay snooper man

Don't confuse Jim Weaver with a window-peeping private eye. He won't trail philandering spouses or ferret out deadbeats -- he says he doesn't go in for that "cloak-and-dagger domestic stuff."

Weaver, 40, is a private investigator for companies. In fact, as far as he knows he's the state's only lawyer who is also a practicing P.I. Much of his business is copyright and trademark work, but his oneman Investigative Resources Inc. in Winston-Salem will snoop about anything a company wants.

He has done background checks on potential referees for the National Football League and potential franchisees for Jaguar. He's tracked down vendors in the United States and abroad who have produced cheap imitations or deeply discounted items such as Reebok athletic shoes and Giorgio perfume without permission.

He juggles between 15 and 20 cases at a time and completes about 100 a year. He won't disclose his fees but says the going rate for this kind of work is $60 to $150 an hour.

His investigations have taken him as far as Hong Kong and Switzerland, but these days he's sticking closer to home. "My job is getting easier and harder," he says. "It's easier because you know where to go for the guts of it. Your sources are in place, and you're not spinning your wheels. But [it's] harder because I tend to get more...