LIBERTAS

In the area of U.S. constitutional legal history, both directed research and training in historical methods is provided to members of the U.S. legal community, be they appellate advocates, judges, or law students.

 

As a lawyer barred in Virginia and a historian trained at Oxford, Ms. Toler has provided in-depth legal history research for private clients on constitutional questions for D.C. v. Heller, Dodd Frank, and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

 

 

Services Offered:

 

1) Constitutional Legal History Training:

 

• Half-day Training (for attorneys, paralegals and library staff): Includes essential publications on documentary integrity and availability of materials, a guide to using documentary editions, an overview of relevant periods of American History and the sources related to those periods, sources to avoid, and an overview of historical databases and online historical research.

 

• Full-day Training: Includes all of the above plus basics of archival research, National Archives library tour, historical methods, and the methodology of using history in legal analysis.

 

 

2) Directed Research:

 

• Supervision of Associate Work: Initial instruction, monitoring of work progress, review and editing of final work product.

 

• Document Lists: 20-40 pages of primary source listings wherein each entry includes full primary and print/reprint Bluebook citation; weblinks to full searchable text and image of primary source if available; historical background and context for the document, author, or historical event as necessary; and a relevant quote/s from the primary source.

 

• Internal Memorandum: A traditional inter-office legal memo providing full historical background as applied to facts of the case and demonstrating how relevant primary sources may be used in each major legal historical methodology in addition to a catered common law methodology. Can be done in conjunction with document lists. Helpful for Q&A in oral argument.

 

• Brief Writing: Writing a portion of the submitted brief, applying primary sources found and relevant methodologies. Can be done in conjunction with document lists and an internal memorandum.

 

• Amicus Briefing/Scholarly Article: Writing an in-depth parallel amicus or scholarly article on history as applied to case, with or without academic co-authors.

 

 

 

Please                               for more information.