By
Aly Lynch, Stafford Rosenbaum LLP, Madison
March 7, 2012 – Members of organizations such as the American Association for Justice and the Defense Research Institute have access to some expert witness resources as part of their paid membership. However, for nonmembers searching the Internet for expert witnesses, tracking down websites that go beyond basic directory listings can be challenging. The more helpful sites include more than expert witness contact information. This article provides a summary of some of the more useful free online resources.
Get the most out of your search
Comprehensive expert witness information websites make it easy to find the data you need in one site. Content varies by site, but many sites include education, teaching experience, publications written, seminars presented, litigation experience, full curricula vitae, and links to the expert’s individual or company website. Individual and company websites usually provide more information and, in some instances, testimonials and client lists. They can also provide the attorney with a sense of the expert’s professionalism.
One of the more comprehensive sites is offered by the TASA Group, which provides free access to expert articles, whitepapers, and webinars by topic. The service gives you the names of experts in the area in which you search and charges an administrative fee only if you hire the expert. HGExperts Legal Experts Directory goes beyond expert witness research by offering directories for process servers, investigators, court reporters, law firms, arbitrators, and mediators. It provides directories of litigation support professionals in areas such as jury selection, marketing, technology, translation, and trial presentation. ExpertPages provides summaries of court cases involving expert witnesses by federal circuit and links to state and federal rules of evidence, in addition to full expert data.
Additional sites with detailed listings and/or links to the expert’s individual or company website include:
- ALM Experts (articles, CV, and website link),
- Experts.com (articles and CVs/resume),
- Expert Law (articles and website links),
- ExpertWitness.com (website links),
- Expert Witness Network (website links), and
- JurisPro Legal Expert Directory (CV, background, references, and website links).
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Expert Guide provides a list of the university’s experts in various areas, though some of the profiles are short.
Now you’ve got a name – find out more
Once you have some names for potential experts – or the names of experts retained by the other side – websites with articles databases can be used for further research. Searches of articles by topic can lead you to expert names as well. The Library of Congress Online Catalog provides basic and advanced searching mechanisms across various media formats. CBS Interactive Business Network Resource Library contains full text articles from more than 300 periodicals dating back to 1998. The Social Science Research Network allows for article searches by topic, author, or publication title. The National Center for Biotechnology Information provides searching of articles from the medical field.
You will not want to run searches in all these resources with each expert you research, but you may find that a few of these become your go-to sites for at least preliminary expert witness research.
About the Author
Aly Lynch, Marquette 2007, is the marketing coordinator and law librarian at Stafford Rosenbaum LLP, Madison.
