Lawyer Says Lack of ‘Independent Verification’ to Blame for Nonexistent Case Cites

A lawyer who filed an appellate brief that included four cases the Fifth Court of Appeals could not locate has explained that the culprit is “relying on third-party research without independent verification.” 

“This has been a humbling and embarrassing lesson in the importance of verifying every citation at its source,” Heidi Rochon Hafer wrote in a response filed April 20. “Appellants’ counsel does not regularly practice law that requires use of case law research tools and does not have access to Westlaw or Lexis and used the internet in general and a temporary free trial access to a program known as FastCase for case law verification purposes.”