Linguistics Expert Witnesses

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:

View Dr. Leonard's Consulting Profile.

In addition to providing the advice and analysis described in my "Consultant" profile (document interpretation, plagiarism, copyright/trademark infringement, and anonymous/disputed authorship), I am a court-certified Lay Witness, per Rule 701 of the Federal Rules for Evidence. I am the author of three books on writing.  The depth and breadth of my experience -- academic qualifications plus my previous forensic work and extensive real-world language experience, including writing speeches for the CEO of General Motors, qualifies me to give testimony if my expert opinions would assist the trier of fact.

It's been said that the quality of an expert lies in how well he/she explains what he/she does.  I consider this one of my key strengths.  My reports are clear, straightforward, and as non-technical as possible.  I have been deposed several times..  

Recent article (for others, see blog section of www.language-expert.net): On understanding the Miranda warning

Complete CV: Alan Perlman, PhD - Forensic linguistics CV, Jan'19, includes court cases.docx

View Alan Perlman's Consultant Profile.

Reasoning, Inc. provides expert testimony for trademarks, defamation, authorship attribution, and communicative malpractice related to faulty tests and surveys. Reasoning is a group of doctoral-level linguists and logicians with superior understanding of all aspects of language. We do linguistic and logical analyses of publications, newspapers, books, letters, interviews, advertisements, manuals, contracts--to identify meanings, inferences, innuendoes, bias, actual malice, damage to reputation, similarity to other documents, copyright infringement, plagiarism, breach of contract, authorship, and fraud.

As a specialist in educational testing, Dr. Habick provides expert testimony on educational practices related to fairness, bias, psychometrics, and flawed test questions or testing programs. He provides Linguistic Analysis of news reports and other communications and in the assessment of Violations of Legal, Ethical, and Professional Standards.

Dr. Habick testified as an expert witness in linguistics in the U.S. District Court, Trenton, in The United States of America v. Tyshon Bey. Dr. Habick performed linguistic analyses on defamation and trademark cases for Pisanelli-Bice, Las Vegas; Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, Tampa; Seed Intellectual Property Law Group, Seattle, and Perkins Coie, Seattle.

Reasoning, Inc. also provided expert testimony on unfair testing, grading, and educational practices for Seals v. State of Mississippi et al.

Areas of Expertise:

Professional Affiliations
American Dialect Society (ADS)
International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL)

• Communication Messages: Meaning, Ambiguity, Likely and Alternate Interpretations, Communicative Intention
• Adequacy/Inadequacy of Messages: Product Warnings, Instructions, Waivers, Advertisements
• Male / Female Misunderstandings: Sexual Consent/Resistance, Date Rape

• Expert testimony & Consultation
• Opinion on Adequacy of Communication Messages
• Opinion on Likely Consumer Interpretation of Warnings, Instructions, Advertising
• Opinion on Likely Intrepretation of Sexual Resistance/Consent Messages and Behaviors
• Social-scientific testing of expert opinion (his and others')