Recent Enhancements to Litigation Research Tasks Pages Make Researching Expert Witnesses Even Easier

They don't teach you everything in law school. Yes, you learn how to perform legal research and, yes, you learn how to write a brief. Maybe you even learn how to conduct an opening statement or a cross examination. But do they teach you how to find an expert or evaluate one? Likely not. Yet with experts playing such a critical role in litigation today, knowing how to conduct a thorough investigation of an expert – whether it's one you are thinking of retaining or one you will need to depose and then cross examine – is a critical skill that younger attorneys need to acquire.

Fortunately for you, LexisNexis is making such research much easier through recent enhancements to the litigation Research Tasks pages. On the right side of those pages, you'll now see links under the “Investigation” heading to tools to help you evaluate/investigate judges, attorneys, parties and experts.

Take particular notice of the “Expert Investigation” secondary page. Litigators can use this robust page to conduct all types of expert-related research via seven task boxes, specifically:

• Investigation: allows you to (a) choose LexisNexis Analyzer to run a search on an expert, (b) select and then search the various sources displayed via the “Individual Database Search” option, or (c) link out to CourtLink to run a search through dockets;


• Statutes & Rules: allows you to link directly to the Federal Rules of Evidence that relate to expert testimony (e.g. Rule 701: “Testimony by Experts”) or to the lexis.com source hierarchy to access relevant state rules;


• Find an Expert Witness: allows you to select from and search through various suggested sources that can be used to find an expert, including expert directories (e.g. from Martindale-Hubbell, JurisPro, etc.), licensing information, and even jury verdict reports;


• Search Advisor “Expert” Topics: allows you to link directly to Search Advisor topics that relate to expert testimony (e.g. Opinion on Ultimate Issue);


• Gatekeeping Research via Daubert Tracker Case Reports: allows you to run a search on a particular area of expertise to determine which courts have found that area of expertise acceptable;


• Analytical Information about Expert Testimony: allows you to select a particular treatise or practice guide (e.g. Weinstein's Federal Evidence) and have a search of the word “expert” run automatically through that title's TOC, so you can quickly identify relevant sections to review. If a TOC search is not available for the title chosen, you will simply be taken to a search box, so you can run a search through that source; and


• Current Awareness: allows you to link to Mealey's reports on Daubert or Discovery to learn about the latest developments in the area of expert testimony.

As you can tell, this Expert Investigation page has pretty much all you need when it comes to conducting expert witness related research. From linking you out to various legal research source and products to providing you with investigation tools to review an expert's background, it's truly a “one stop shop” for your expert research needs.