Unveiling Legal Research: Navigating Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia with a Litigation Paralegal
The importance of legal study in the context of the Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia case is made abundantly clear in the audio interview with litigation paralegal Ruby Pendas. Ruby’s observations highlight the important role that diligent data collection and analysis play in the legal industry. It becomes clear that legal research is more than simply gathering information; it’s about developing a compelling argument based on the most recent laws and precedents as she outlines the complexities of writing a case brief and the significance of arranging facts. Ruby’s mention of the potential use of data visualization in the legal field highlights the need for innovative approaches to streamline the research process and enhance legal practitioners’ ability to navigate complex legal landscapes.
Listen here:
Data Chat Transcript:
Speaker 1 0:00
Hello everyone and welcome to the data chat. I am Marian Estevez an FIU student and we are here with Ruby Pendas, a former NSU student. Hi, Ruby. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2 0:10
Hi, my name is Ruby and I was a student at NSU. I graduated May of 2022. I majored in Paralegal Studies. And I did a minor in writing. And I’m currently working at one of the biggest business law firms in the country. It’s Berger Singerman. I’m currently working as one of their litigation, paralegals.
Speaker 1 0:33
Awesome. And today, we’re going to talk about loving the Commonwealth of Virginia, a Supreme Court case that took place in 1967. I understand you had to prepare a case brief about this case. Can you speak to us a little bit more about what a case brief is what it’s used for, and how you gather data to create a case brief?
Speaker 2 0:53
Yes, a case brief is is basically a summarization of a specific case. And this case, we’re talking about Loving v. Commonwealth, which is a Supreme Court case, and, and it talks about interracial marriages. So in the case brief, you always want to know the issue, the analysis, the history, and the conclusion. All of those things require a bit of a certain amount of research in order for you to be answered those correctly. The two things that require the main amount of research is the analysis and the history part of it. Throughout the the opinion that the judge gave and the final verdict, there were several other cases that were mentioned all over the state, there were cases from Florida from Ohio, there were several states that were used. And basically, you want to gather that information. And you want to learn about each of those cases, because each of those cases were given opinions by different judges, different judges have different opinions have different political views. So and a topic such as this one that is very much a political topic, because it talks about race, you know, being able to gather that information gives you the ability to know your audience. And that way, when we’re going up to fight a similar problem, because someone sued someone for racial issues, we want to know what our audience is, we want to know where we should hit our strategies we should use to know when to best do our argument on opinion for a case could be between 15 to 20 pages long. So you have to know how to kind of rip apart the information and do individual research and each of the cases that were used to then learn about each of those judges that gave those opinions. When you
Speaker 1 2:33
were collecting information for your data. How did you know what was important? And how did you know what to categorize?
Speaker 2 2:40
So when you’re collecting information, you obviously have to look at more than just one case. So for example, like in the previous questions, I gave the example of someone suing someone because they had basically interracial issues, something and that just right, if let’s say that’s the case that we’re dealing with, we’re going to use multiple cases to support our argument. And this example, the main case that we’re using is loving the Commonwealth of Virginia. This particular case, this opinion was made in 1966, which means this is a pretty old opinion. And currently, if you were to go stand in front of a courtroom, you need to make sure that the facts that are stated in this opinion, are still accurate. So it’s super important to know the history and order of your research, because the latest facts on whatever you are researching is the only thing that matters. So for example, in this particular case, this is a good amount of years from 1966. Until now. So you know, we have a case where we need to use this as a point of defense, I need to make sure that I’m doing thorough research to know that there’s nothing else out there that overpowers this, the way that you do that is called shepardize ng. So there’s different programs that allow you to shepardize program itself will tell you if there’s any case overseas This however, if you don’t have a program like that you physically have to jot that data down. So as you go through the cases, you basically have to jot down if there is a case that happened in a year and an earlier year that either amends or changes what your original cases say. And
Speaker 1 4:16
basically based off of what you’re telling me I understand that correctly using the data and knowing how to organize it is a vital part any legal research. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Speaker 2 4:26
Yes. So the whole idea of legal research and knowing correctly how to gather the data that you’re using, is because you eventually need to use that research and that data to defend a certain point whether it is in a trial hearing or conference hearing or a deposition. You need to know exactly what the facts are and the latest law or fact or policy or case law that affects whatever topic you’re talking about. Because if you were to say anything in a hearing in a depo. And emotion, even that remotely is incorrect or has been overthrown by something at an earlier year by any judge and anywhere in the country, all of a sudden, that can be used against you, and against your credibility being able to prove your argument, which is why as I said before the timeline, knowing how to categorize and put your data in the correct timeline, as you’re reading through it is super important, though. Okay, so we’re talking about which is loving the Commonwealth, it’s actually a Supreme Court case, this case has even more pressure to it, because this case, whatever the judge, will, whatever the judge’s verdict is, whatever the opinion is, at the end of this case, will affect all of the United States. This case, it’s a 12 page opinion. And like I said before, this is about to resonance in Virginia in 1958, Mildred, Jada, a colored woman and Richard loving, a white man were married in the District of Columbia, their couples returned to Virginia shortly after, and they were charged with violation of the state’s Miss generation statute, which banned interracial marriages, when the attorneys were defending this case, they had to go back and use an insane amount of case law that other states were using to support their opinion to support why these two people should not be charged with any type of crime simply because they’re different races and they’re married, or there are case law cited from Ohio, New York, I have here, Oklahoma, and all of these things, you need to make sure that that is the latest law that Oklahoma has on this subject, it’s super important to lay it all out. So you can visually see the timeframe and the timeline from one state from one case to the other.
Speaker 1 7:01
Okay, and if you’re going to gather data by researching the different opinions that were used as a supporting fact for your case, how would you then use your data to help you argue your point of view in court?
Speaker 2 7:13
Okay, so, obviously, like when it comes to anything, and especially in law, no matter how fair we want to believe our justice system is, there’s still obviously opinions and people are biased. That’s a personal opinion, that’s not a fact. But that’s something that you have to keep in mind. In this particular case, we’re talking about by interracial marriages, which, of course, at this time was a huge topic, a black man marrying a white woman was a huge issue. And it was a political issue event and today’s day, not so much because we’ve modernized and we’ve turned that page. But in terms of knowing who your audience is, that affects a whole lot how you do your research example, let’s say I’m helping an attorney prepare their opening statement or their closing statement for a trial or their questions when they are deposing a witness, if I know that this trial was being held in a red state, or in a more conservative state, then my questions, my wording, my language, it’s going to be based on that because there’s a greater chance the judge that I might get is the same and has more conservative opinions, and that the jury that I might get highest, more conservative, and we’ll go more towards that side, which means that the research that I use needs to help me with that.
Speaker 1 8:43
From what we’ve gathered during this interview, legal research is a long and detailed process. So for our final question, I want to ask you if you would like to see more data visualization in the legal world?
Speaker 2 8:55
Yes, I think that would for sure help. Just because visible data will probably get to the point a lot faster than a lot of the usual data that you have to comb through, you know, if you’re going if you’re reading case, law, an opinion is going to be close to 2025. I mean, there’s 50 Page opinions that you have to read through. And there’s no chart that gets you to the point of hey, there’s this amount of cases that stated that this was what they were going for this amount of cases that stated that this was what was going for. And the judges decided on this like it’s all very complex. It’s a lot of explaining. It’s something something that’s extremely common, yet the idea of using charts and more visualize data risk like recovery. It’s never been never been heard of. But I definitely think it’s something that would help especially students that are learning how to gather this information and to not feel overwhelmed by it when they have to read so much.
Speaker 1 9:57
All right, thank you, Ruby. For being with us here in the data chat
Speaker 2 10:00
Awesome thank you so much for having me bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
