Contact an Internet Defamation Expert Witness
What to send in a first message about an internet defamation matter, and what to keep back until the conflict check clears
Who should write
This site is written for attorneys, and so is this page. If you are litigating an internet defamation matter on either side and want to know whether the technical record can carry the weight your case is putting on it, write. If you are the subject of something published online and do not have a lawyer yet, that is the first call to make, and it is not this one.
A first message is a scoping conversation, not an engagement. It creates no relationship of any kind, and I am not an attorney.
What a useful first message contains
- The names. All parties, any related entities, and opposing counsel. This is what the conflict check runs on and it is the only part I truly need up front.
- Where the content is. The platforms, sites or search results at issue, in general terms.
- The posture. Filed or pre-suit, which side, and any deadline that governs.
- The question. What you would want an expert to establish, in one or two sentences.
- Whether the content is still live. If it is, say so — that changes what happens next and it changes it today.
Five short lines is plenty. I would rather have the names and the question than a full narrative.
What to leave out of a first message
- Anything privileged or work product.
- Client confidences, and material covered by a protective order.
- Case files, pleadings, transcripts and productions. Attachments come after the conflict check clears, not before.
- Your theory of the case in detail. Names first; facts once I can hear them.
The form on this page transmits nothing to this website. It opens a pre-filled message in your own mail application, which you can read and edit before you send it, and nothing typed into it is stored here. That is a reason to be careful with it rather than a reason to relax — once you send it, it is ordinary email, with ordinary email's security.
Why the conflict check comes first
A conflict check is a search of prior and current engagements against the names you send: parties, related companies, domains, and counsel. It runs before any substantive discussion for two reasons. The obvious one is that I cannot take a matter adverse to someone I have worked for. The less obvious one protects you — if I hear your theory and then discover a conflict, you have disclosed your thinking to someone who cannot help you and may be positioned to hurt you.
So the sequence is fixed: names, check, then facts.
What happens after you write
I reply to tell you whether the check cleared. If it did, the next step is a short call to scope: what the question is, which records exist, who holds them, and whether an expert is worth the money on this particular matter. Sometimes the honest answer at the end of that call is that it is not, and I will say so.
If the content at issue is still live and reachable, treat collection as this week's task regardless of whether you retain anyone. Records that disappear before anyone preserves them do not come back, and no amount of later work reconstructs them fully.
Or write directly: [email protected]