ACFW Research Class: Lesson Seven: legal research basics

April 2008 ACFW On-line Class Lesson Seven

Research Your Way to a Book Readers Can’t Put Down

Suspense Research – Legal Research Basics

The law is a complicated area. And it often crops up in mystery and suspense books. Because of the number of questions I get on this area, I have compiled the following information. Hopefully, it will give you some basic background information and then point you to some great starting points for your research. You may still need to contact an attorney. But hopefully, by following this advice, you can contact the attorney to confirm what you’ve already learned and answer the difficult questions.

So here goes. Legal research for writers in a nutshell.

For starters there’s federal law. That consists of laws that Congress passes, the Constitution (that wonderful gift from the founding fathers), and decisions handed down by the Supreme Court. Then there are all the regulations created by federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and IRS to implement the many laws passed by Congress. And don’t forget things like Executive Orders implemented by the President.

The there’s state law. Not just in your state, but in every state. Fifty different versions of the law. And that’s broken into Common Law, which has largely been adopted from English law dating back to the 1300 and 1400s. Think torts/negligence. It is quite established law that there are four elements to a tort: duty, breach, causation, and damages. All states and federal law recognize these elements. But each state then has different cases interpreting those elements. So Common Law is theoretically standardized, but must be examined in each state.

Then there’s all the statutory law. These are the laws that were created by the state houses (either bicameral or unicameral – again depending on the state).

Don’t forget County laws, City ordinances, planning commissions, zoning boards, and so many other forms of local government. It can get crazy.

So what’s a writer to do? How can a writer make sure they accurately reflect the law? Here are a couple quick tips:

1) Talk to an attorney.

2) Do some basic research on-line.

3) Talk to an attorney.

4) Know the state you are writing in.

Nothing is more distracting to a reader than to find an error in your story that could have been easily fact-checked. My favorite all time example (which is actually from one of my favorite romantic-suspense authors): in this particular book, the heroine works for a state’s governor’s reelection campaign. Only problem, this state doesn’t allow a governor to run for reelection for a consecutive term. The author assumed this state was like 90% of the states. And it isn’t.

So let’s take that extra step to spot-check the research and get it right. Your readers will know if you don’t.

So I’ve discussed the basic areas of legal research… there are just a few! Now what? How do you start finding the information that you need for your novel?

One great place to start is national organizations. Here are a few to get you started:

q American Bar Association (www.abanet.com) is a great resource for research on a host of legal issues. It won’t necessarily go into a ton of detail, but it will give you a great overview or background on just about any legal issue. I could get lost on its website, there’s so much great information!

q American Civil Liberties Union… if you are interested in getting the liberal perspective on an issue – often needed to make our stories balanced – or if you are looking for experts on prisoners’ rights issues, this can be a great organization to start with. Most states also have a chapter of the national organization. Here’s the national website: http://www.aclu.com/ with links to issues ranging from prisoners rights to disability rights to religion and reproductive rights.

q American Center for Law & Justice (www.aclj.org) is a counter to the ACLU. The ACLJ was started in the late 1980s early 1990s by Jay Sekulow. He’s an attorney who was involved in many of the ground-breaking Supreme Court cases during that era, particularly in religious freedom cases. The website also contains many issue papers here: http://www.aclj.org/Issues/. The ACLJ is affiliated with the Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, VA, and can be a good starting place for the conservative position on issues like national security, prayer, and education rights.

q Center for Education Reform (www.edreform.org) is an organization based in Washington, DC, that is focused on helping parents get more rights in education. It’s focus is charter schools and other forms of bringing choice in education to all children, but has expertise in other areas as well.

q Institute for Justice (www.ij.org) is a more libertarian organization that focuses on eminent domain and entrepreneurial rights, think shipping wine across state lines and other areas where government is restricting the access of individuals to a business area. The website contains information on cases and media information. I attended a law student training program and plan to interface with them on one of my books that involves eminent domain issues.

q Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org) is another organization that focuses on the conservative position to many cases. I have found them extremely helpful in my role as an attorney, both being trained and calling on them for help with cases, and would expect the same for help with plot-lines. There are trained allies in all 50 states, so if you need an expert in an area, this could be another great place to start.

q Home School Legal Defense Association (www.hslda.org) is an organization that is driven by a mission to protect homeschooling families that are members. Their expertise spills over into other areas that states use to harass homeschooling families like CPS checks, etc. Again, they have trained attorneys available in most states, so you could call and ask to be connected to someone in a state your book is set in, and if your issue falls in line with theirs, may have found yourself an automatic expert.

q The State Policy Network (http://www.spn.org/) is an umbrella organization for state think-tanks that focus on free-market issues. It has a blog that focuses on what’s happening in the various states (http://blog.spn.org/) and contains a link to member organizations – another great resource to access experts.

q CATO (www.cato.org) is a libertarian think-tank based in Washington, DC. It has an extensive list of experts you can email, publications you can review online, and many other resources readily available at your fingertips. I interfaced with one of their experts when needing some information on ethanol research, but there are a host of experts on many, many topics.

q The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org) is the grand-daddy of the conservative think-tanks in Washington, DC. You want an expert? They have one. Education, energy, entitlements, congressional reform, etc. The list is almost endless, and you can identify the expert you need online.

These organizations are literally just the tip of the iceberg, but hopefully this gives you an idea of what is available as easily as clicking on internet explorer.

Now that you’ve seen just a few of the national organizations that have helpful websites, let’s look at where you can find legal information.

q Looking for plot ideas? Check out http://www.lawyersusaonline.com/. This website contains articles about cases and trends from around the United States.

q WWW.Law.com is another site that contains links to legal stories from across the country. It can be a great place to find quirky court cases and stories about judges and attorneys to flesh out your characters.

q Now I haven’t used this site, but www.lawguru.com looks like it could be another helpful starting point. You may be able to find background information there that will help you grasp the background before approaching an attorney with questions.

q The Legal Information Institute at Cornell University (http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Legal_research) is an EXCELLENT source of background material on legal issues. This page: http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Category:Overview leads to overview articles on a host of legal issues. Have questions about child support? Start there. How about probate and wills? You guessed it – go there first. Many of the initial questions I’m asked could be answered if the person searched for an article here first. The general page breaks the law into federal and state issues and gives a helpful overview. I STRONGLY encourage you to start your legal research here.

q In the right hand column of each topic, LII provides links to federal, state and other resources. It will take you straight to the relevant code or agency. This can be a huge help!

q Don’t forget Federal Agencies. Here’s a short list to get you started:

o Department of Labor: http://www.dol.gov/

o Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: www.eeoc.gov

o Internal Revenue Service: www.irs.gov

o Department of Commerce: http://www.commerce.gov/

o Department of Defense: http://www.defense.gov/

o White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/

o Library of Commerce: http://thomas.loc.gov/

o National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/

o House of Representatives: www.house.gov

o US Senate: www.senate.gov

o US Forest Service: http://www.fs.fed.us/