Robert Leonard and Associates consults with law firms, government and law enforcement agencies, and individuals in situations where language analysis may be helpful. Their team of associate linguists analyze many types of language evidence and construct multi-level analyses, examining a wide variety of identifying features of language usage.
Principal, Robert A. Leonard, PhD, is a Linguistics and Language Analysis Expert with decades of experience in his field. Dr. Leonard is a Fulbright Fellow, Fellow of the Faculty of Columbia University, named Forensic Linguist of the Year by the GSFL, Teacher of the Year at Hofstra University, and Distinguished Faculty Lecturer at Hofstra. He founded and directs a fully accredited graduate program in Forensic Linguistics at Hofstra where he is a fully tenured Professor.
Experience: Dr. Leonard has been employed by the FBI to work on specific cases, train their agents, and analyze and advise on their Communicated Threat Assessment Database (CTAD), a "computerized database/software program designed to be the primary repository for all communicated threats and other criminally oriented communications" within the FBI and the United States.
Dr. Leonard has also trained British law enforcement agencies, analyzed murder-related letters for the Pennsylvania State Police; consulted on domestic terrorism cases for law enforcement agencies in California; analyzed testimony that resulted in perjury indictments for the District Attorney in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania; linguistically traced threatening letters for the Baltimore Police; linguistically traced bomb-threat voice calls to the Nassau County, New York courthouse; and consulted on scores of other criminal cases at the request of law enforcement agencies throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and continental Europe, as well as on scores of civil cases for major law firms for clients including Apple, Inc., and Facebook.
Media / Speaking Engagements: Dr. Leonard delivers presentations on the science of forensic linguistics and has been interviewed by such media outlets as the New York Times, The New Yorker Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian Magazine, ABC Nightline, USA Today, the Washington Times, and the Associated Press to name a few.
View Dr. Leonard's Expert Witness Profile.
The well-established science of linguistics analyzes all aspects of human language. Linguistics has many subfields, including the study of language structure, sound patterns, the dynamics of language in interpersonal and intergroup communication, and the interplay of meaning, grammar, and context. In academic departments it is often paired with other neighboring disciplines such as cognitive science.
