Legal research is necessary to find statutes, cases, and regulations
that can be cited in a Brief as authority to support a litigant's
position, and to inform the judge of the controlling law in the
jurisdiction. Citation of authorities is part of effective advocacy
and is a duty that an attorney owes to his/her client.
For more information on the obligation to do legal research, see my
essay.
Simple Service
I can quickly search and find relevant cases, statutes, and regulations
in the USA, print them on paper, and send them to you.
Specialized Services
Memoranda of Law
I can also prepare a memorandum of law that summarizes and critically reviews
cases, and distinguish apparently contradictory holdings. Such a memorandum
will also include quotations from cases and with citations in
Blue Book format.
Such memoranda can save time for a litigator who is busy with
court proceedings and depositions.
In addition to a copy on paper, I can send a memorandum as an e-mail attachment
or on a floppy disk, either in rich text format (RTF)
or in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, for your secretary to use to create
future Briefs via cut-and-paste, without needing to retype the quotations
and citations. This method avoids errors in the quotations and citations
in your Brief, since I obtain the quotations directly from Westlaw
via a cut-and-paste.
Technical Information
Litigators are familiar with getting facts and opinions from opponents
through interrogatories, document requests, and depositions.
However, many litigators overlook a parallel way to find
information useful in litigation: searches of published information
in science, engineering, medicine, technology,
engineering standards, and patents.
There are many different ways that such published information can be
useful to litigators, for example:
find legally significant facts from journals in science, engineering,
or medicine, or from government reports, etc.
Such facts may suggest additional legal theories and help formulate
questions to ask expert witnesses (including impeachment).
in products liability litigation: find patents to show availability of
a feasible, safer alternative at the time of manufacture.
in torts: engineering standards may help establish a duty of care for
the defendant.
in patent infringement litigation:
find prior art to invalidate plaintiff's patent.
obtain peer-reviewed, scholarly publications to provide to
inexpensive, local expert witnesses, to provide them with a basis for their
opinions that will withstand a Daubert hearing.
searches of scholarly literature will identify expert witnesses
with an impressive list of peer-reviewed publications
and a strong international reputation.
Because I am both a scientist and an attorney,
I can do more than merely find such technical information:
I can also interpret it in the context of law, as well as
provide critical reviews of the technical information.
Details about the sources of such technical information is provided
in my separate webpage on
Information Resources
that I use.
My Credentials
My brief credentials:
I earned a Ph.D. in physics in 1977.
I have more than 16 years of experience doing research in physics and
electrical engineering, including writing more than 35 published technical
papers and one book.
I earned a J.D. in 1998, and I am licensed to practice law in all state
and federal courts in Massachusetts. I am an attorney and consultant
in private practice.
I have used Dialog online databases in science, engineering, and patents since 1981.
I had a personal DIALOG account continuously from December 1990
until November 2004. (I now access DIALOG from within Westlaw.)
I used Lexis online legal databases during 1991-97.
I have used Westlaw online legal databases extensively since December 1995.
During the 2003 year,
I spent a total of 225 hours using Westlaw.
During 1996-2003, I downloaded cases from Westlaw and
arranged them in WordPerfect documents by topic.
I have accumulated a total of
147 megabytes of case files in WordPerfect, which corresponds
to approximately 37,000 printed pages (singled-spaced,
10 point type).
I have used the online access to U.S. federal court dockets
since August 2002, to retrieve briefs, judgments, and other
unpublished decisions.
I will personally do all work on your project, so you get the full
benefit of my knowledge and experience.
Fees and Expenses
I charge an hourly rate for my time, plus reimbursement of expenses, and
interest on invoices that are not paid within 30 days.
Details are posted at my webpage on fees and terms.
I have a subscription to unlimited use of Westlaw databases that contain:
all reported cases from courts in all fifty states in the USA,
all reported cases from all federal courts in the USA, and
current statutes from all fifty states and the federal government.
I do not charge my clients for expenses of searching
these databases in Westlaw.
I do charge for actual expenses of searching databases in Dialog or
Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, or for searching other databases
in Westlaw.
My legal research services are available exclusively to licensed
attorneys.
As a matter of policy, I do not work for pro se litigants
unless they are also a licensed attorney.
Contact Dr. Standler:
Dr. Ronald B. Standler
P.O. Box 3780
Concord, NH 03302-3780
USA
Copyright 2003-2006 by Ronald B. Standler
This document is at http://www.rbs2.com/legres.htm
revised 14 July 2007
