Tort Law Resources on the Internet, Robert J. Ambrogi

legal.online, August 1996

Tort Lawyers Can Use The 'Net

To Research Products, Injuries, More

By Robert J. Ambrogi

Personal-injury lawyers are limited only by their imaginations in how they use the Internet. Through its vast resources, they can research a defective product, read up on a client's injury, or locate an expert witness.

What follows is a sampling of some of the best resources for personal injury lawyers on the Internet.

General

U.S. House of Representatives, Internet Law Library, http://law.house.gov/110.htm. The library's section on tort law may be the Internet's best general resource on the subject. A unique feature is its collection of recent court decisions relating to tort law. The site also has links to a number of articles and commentaries, as well as to other, related Web sites.

Law Journal EXTRA!, http://www.ljx.com. This is a useful site with a variety of general information. From the main screen, follow the link to "Practice Areas," then choose either "Negligence/Malpractice" or "Intentional Tort." Both have an assortment of columns, news stories, memoranda, court decisions and other resources. The Negligence section features a searchable database of verdicts and settlements.

The Consumer Law Page, http://seamless.com/alexanderlaw/txt/intro.html. One of the most comprehensive personal-injury resources on the Internet, this is actually several related sites that spin off from each other.

The Consumer Law Page offers an encyclopedic collection of articles and brochures of interest to PI lawyers and consumers. Topics include: automobiles, insurance, products liability, toxic torts, and traumatic brain injuries.

From this site you can follow a link to The Personal Injury Law Page, with its own collection of articles, brochures and resources (although many are the same). Or you can jump to the National Consumer Complaint Center, whose purpose is described as offering "a method of promptly communicating consumer complaints to agencies that are interested in investigating and taking action."

Organizations

ATLA, http://www.atlanet.org. This site is home to ATLA Net, an online service restricted to members of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. However, a portion of the site is open to the public and offers useful information. It includes a list of ATLA's litigation groups; click on any group's name for a detailed description of its purpose. The site also has articles from the newsletter "Amicus News." Also at the site are a selection of full-text decisions from cases in which ATLA submitted briefs, and a calendar of ATLA events.

Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association, http://webcommerce.com/philatla. PTLA's site is new to the Web, and the organization is continuing to add material. So far, the site includes full text articles from PTLA's monthly newsletter and a schedule of CLE programs. The site offers one of the best collections of links for trial lawyers.

Indiana Trial Lawyers Association, http://www.unilaw.com/itla/main.htm. Access to part of this site is restricted to members. The public part includes information on pending Indiana and federal legislation of interest to tort lawyers, an attorney referral service, and a list of members and events. Coming soon, the site promises, is a searchable data bank of verdicts and depositions.

New York Trial Lawyers Association, http://www.NYSTLA.org. There is little here in the way of content -- the site mostly has descriptions of publications available for purchase.

Washington State Trial Lawyers Association, http://www.wstla.org/index.html. Besides general information about the WSTLA, this site offers a monthly "Tort Law Update" and a section devoted to state legal news of interest to consumers.

ABA Tort and Insurance Practice Section, http://www.abanet.org/tips/home.html. TIPS' site has general information about the section and selected articles from The Brief, its quarterly publication.

Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers, http://pwr.com/legal/aftl. Part of this site is restricted to members. The public area has information about the AFTL and its publications and an online directory of members.

Consumer Attorneys of California, http://www.seamless.com/consumer. This organization of plaintiffs' lawyers divides its site into two parts: the CAOC home page and the Consumer Alerts Page. The home page contains general information about the organization. The Consumer page has information about recent ballot initiatives of interest to PI lawyers, reprints of articles from the CAOC newsletter, and a member directory.

Government

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, http://cpsc.gov. This is a treasure trove for products-liability lawyers, offering the full-text of CPSC publications on everything from toy and recreational safety to indoor air quality and poison prevention. There are also current press releases regarding product recalls and other matters. The Web site links to a gopher site, where even more materials are housed, including MECAP News, a publication that reports on injuries and deaths associated with consumer products.

CPSC also operates a listserv that allows you to automatically receive press releases and other information and reports by e-mail. To subscribe to this free service, send an e-mail message to: listproc@cpsc.gov. Leave the subject blank and in the body of the message enter: sub CPSCINFO-L Firstname Lastname (substituting your real name).

Food and Drug Administration, http://www.fda.gov. The FDA's Web site offers a wealth of useful information for personal-injury lawyers. The site is divided among the major categories of products the FDA regulates: Foods, Human Drugs, Biologics, Medical Devices/Radiological Health, Animal Drugs, and Cosmetics. Each subsection is home to a variety of resources. Under Human Drugs, for example, is a link to the Center for Drug Evaluation & Research, including a list of FDA-approved drugs. The site also has current FDA news releases and information on related topics such as imports and toxicology.

U.S. Department of Transportation, http://www.dot.gov. Trial lawyers will find this site useful for its listings of product recalls and safety notices from agencies under the DOT umbrella, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Federal Railroad Administration.

Product Safety

Standards & Specifications, http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/society/standards.html. Products-liability lawyers should prepare themselves to settle in for many hours of surfing from this site, which provides links to more than 30 collections of full text professional standards and specifications, promulgated by organizations such as the Acoustical Society of America, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Iron and Steel Institute, American National Standards Institute, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, SAE International, and more.

Health and Safety Resources on the Internet, http://www.sas.ab.ca/biz/christie/safelist.html. This is a collection of some 1,300 links to Internet resources relating to health and safety, primarily in the workplace.

Central Notice, http://www.notice.com. Notices of class actions and product recalls are posted here.

Bicycle recalls and advisories, http://www.bikepro.com/recalls/recalls.html. A bicycle dealer maintains this list of recalls and advisories.

Skip Tracing

Skip Tracing Tool Box, http://www.infoquest.com/ara/skip.html. "Skip tracing" is the art of finding "lost" people, be they witnesses, defendants, debtors or what have you. The Internet offers many tools to help locate someone. This site, maintained by the American Recovery Association, provides links to several of the most useful finding tools, including phone books, area-code directories, zip-code information, and others.

Motor Vehicle

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, http://www.hwysafety.org, and the Highway Loss Data Institute, http://www.carsafety.org, two sites sponsored by the insurance industry, house a collection of articles, reports and other resources relating to highway safety. The latter site features data on injury, collision and theft losses, organized by make and model of vehicle. The former organizes resources under such topics as: Roads & Highways, Passenger Vehicles, Pedestrians, Alcohol & Other Drugs, Traffic Laws, Trucks, Motorcycles, and Bicycles.

Goodyear Tire, http://www.goodyear.com. If you have a case involving a defective tire, you might want to start by attending Goodyear's "Tire School." This online course offers a thorough introduction to grades, traction, tread, temperature ranges, care and wear.

Medical Resources

Medscape, http://www.medscape.com. The premier source for medical literature is the Medline database, produced by the National Library of Medicine. Several Internet sites offer access to Medline, but this is the only one that is free and unrestricted. This site also includes Medscape's own database of clinical articles and medical news and discussion groups.

Medical Malpractice Home Page, http://www.law.vill.edu/~psand/medmal. This site is intended to be a starting point for doctors, lawyers and others on the topic of medical malpractice. It provides links to substantive medical and legal information, pointers to traditional reference materials, and an expert-witness section.

Robert J. Ambrogi, a lawyer in Rockport, Mass., is editor of legal.online, a monthly newsletter about the Internet published by Legal Communications Ltd., Philadelphia. He can be reached by e-mail at rambrogi@legaline.com or by phone at (978) 546-7898.