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Federal Pro Se Legal Assistance Program: Research Support

This guide is designed to support students working in BC Law's federal pro se clinic for civil cases in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Drafting Overview

Before you begin drafting documents like motions, supporting memoranda, or discovery requests, see if you can find a good form document (also called a model, sample, or template document) or drafting guide to help you. The best forms and guides will be for your jurisdiction, fairly recent, and (ideally) on the same topic.

Where to start: 

  • The clinic's own bank of materials, as it develops;
  • Westlaw's Practical Law, Lexis Practical Guidance, and Bloomberg Law Practical Guidance—browse or search for your terms and then use the filters to narrow by jurisdiction and to standard/template documents, checklists, and so on. Practice notes also will often include drafting tips;
  • Forms entry point on Westlaw, and the Sample Forms entry point on Lexis+;
  • On-topic secondary sources like treatises and practice manuals will often include sample forms and drafting tips, sometimes in an appendix or as exhibits; and 
  • Use docket searches to retrieve similar types of cases, and look at the filings for inspiration. 

Keep in mind:

  • Forms are a starting point and need to be customized;
  • Check that any citations to law are accurate, valid/current, and the most authoritative sources for your jurisdiction; and
  • Adapt all facts to your client's particular situation.

Practical Guidance Tools

Westlaw Forms & Lexis Sample Forms

Westlaw and Lexis both have entry points from forms from their main pages. Once you're in, search for your keywords (e.g., "motion to dismiss" and oppos!) and then filter by jurisdiction (e.g., Federal or National). If you get a lot of options for your particular type of motion or discovery issue, you could also filter by practice area or add additional search terms, such as "employment discrimination" or 1983. 

These form tools allow you to search big national formbooks, such as West's Federal Procedural Forms or Lexis Bender's Federal Practice Forms, along with secondary sources like Housing Discrimination Practice Manual, which include sample documents to help practitioners with drafting tasks. 

Dockets - Using Real Cases as Guides

If you can't find a good sample form, consider finding a real case that could inspire and guide your drafting. You can pull dockets for recent federal cases with our Bloomberg Law subscription (which is populated with dockets from the federal docketing platform, PACER).