Online

In “Avoiding Ambush: Tips for the Successful Preparation and Presentation of Witnesses,” August 2003 Product Liability Law & Strategy,  author Kimberly D. Baker, Esq. suggested using Courtlink to ambush key adverse witnesses by “finding the dirt” on them through searching for divorce proceedings, custody issues, probate proceedings, property disputes, other business disputes and criminal matters such as driving under the influence of alcohol or acts of violence. Courtlink provides a new way to use court records. You can develop Strategic Profiles to gain insight into a public company's litigation history or attorney experience of a particular nature or on a particular type of suit, and map out federal litigation trends. Through CourtLink you can search the historical federal civil online records. The database of court records covers 10 to 20 years of cases to pinpoint relevant information and provides a Strategic Profile with graphs, data charts and facts. If you subscribe, you can retrieve dockets and documents from all federal and state courts directly, even if they are not available online. In addition, you can order dockets and documents from any court from one online source.

In the course of litigation, for example, you can get a company's profile and have access to a litigant's case history in a particular nature of suit. The Litigant Profile helps you identify litigation trends and the resolution of those cases. You can view the dockets to see patterns of settlements, mediation, etc., then update all cases identified at the bottom of the page as having “No defense Counsel assigned” to ensure that you see the most up-to-date view of the information.