Attorneys and Judges

The statistics on how often a trial court judge's decisions are reversed on appeal are not routinely compiled, so the first step would be to search for all appellate court opinions in which the judge's decisions were appealed. This can be done on the fee-based Westlaw system. Search the Syllabus field. Since middle initials are sometimes left out, it is usually better to search for John /2 Doe (where /2 means the words must appear within two words of one another) rather than "John P. Doe" (where the quotations marks tell the system to search for the words as a phrase.) Of course if there are many John Does, the quotation marks may work better. The search would look like this: sy(john /2 doe).

Westlaw is available for public use at no charge in the Minnesota State Law Library.

Unfortunately, the opinions coming straight from the appellate courts do not include the name of the trial court judge, so a search of the State Law Library's appellate court opinions archive would not be successful.

In our positions as librarians, not lawyers, we can suggest resources but cannot give legal advice (such as which form to file) or legal opinions (such as how a statute might apply to particular facts). To do so could be considered the unauthorized practice of law. Even though we try to suggest materials that will be of help, more research is often required to find a complete and correct answer. For many questions, the best answer may be to consult an attorney.