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 hired by the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, Canadian criminal profilers, RCMP, Danish police, British special intelligence units, US JTTF, and many others to work on linguistic cases.
Leonard was Apple's linguist in their trademark battles against both Amazon and Microsoft. In the Federal Southern District of NY in the $14 billion Chevron-Donziger case (Chevron Corp. v. Donziger, 11-cv-00691) District Court Judge Kaplan “fully credit[ed]” his analysis when he testified before him in 2013.
Litigation Support: Dr. Leonard provides expert analysis of Language Evidence. He has been qualified as an Expert in Linguistics, under Frye and under Daubert, in 14 States and six Federal Districts: in State Courts in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, in numerous U.S. District Courts, and he has testified before World Bank ICSID Tribunals in Washington, DC, and Paris.
Dr. Leonard has consulted on hundreds and hundreds of cases. He has been retained by both defendants and prosecutors to consult and/or testify in criminal cases involving murder, espionage, and other felonies, and he has consulted and/or testified for both plaintiffs and defendants in civil cases involving trademarks, plagiarism, libel, malpractice, and the meaning of contracts.
Areas of Linguistic Application:
- Trademark cases
- Undercover Recordings
- Threatening Letters
- Disinformation Letters
- Written Contracts
- Interview and Hiring Documents
- Emails
- Instant Messages
- Signage
- Medical Records and Treatment Notes
- Confessions
| - Web Logs
- Wills
- Spoken Threats
- Promises and Warnings
- Vocabulary Usage
- Grammar
- Fluency
- Narrative
- Structure
- Punctuation
| - Spelling
- Underlying Native Language
- Regionalisms
- Register Type
- Ransom Notes
- Letters
- Formality Level
- Semantic and Pragmatic Strategies
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View Dr. Leonard's Consulting 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.
