California Research
| California Statutory Enactments | |
| Time Frame | Fees |
| Out Same Day | $850 |
| One Business Day | $775 |
| Two Business Days | $700 |
| Three Business Days | $650 |
| Four Business Days | $600 |
| Five Business Days | $550 |
| Two Weeks | $450 |
| Two to Three Weeks | $400 |
There are two factors that determine the fee for any California legislative research: the number of legislative bills to be researched and the amount to time to complete the work. The types of materials we collect include all surviving legislative committees' analyses and their bill files, author's or sponsor's legislative bill files, the Governor's post-enrollment bill file, every amended version of the bill, final history, and any other related legislative committee file that may have been generated on the bill. Since we bill by the number of bills ordered to be researched, you can minimize your research fees by focusing on a subdivision or a term or a phrase that is the focus of your research, which permits us to trace your language and limit the number of bills to the most relevant bill or bills affecting your focus. When a client is interested in the complete legislative history of a particular statute, we can provide research of all of the bills affecting the section, whether substantive and technical. By ordering the complete substantive legislative history only, the client can avoid paying for the research of code maintenance, major revisions or codification bills that, at best, merely enacted technical changes to the language.
When you call us at (800) 666-1917, we will quote the fee to you in advance. You may also visit our online store here.
Other California Research
Research on the history of a California Regulation, California Rule of Court, or Rule of Professional Conduct will generally incur a research fee of $575 - $1050, plus expenses, depending on the project. Although we will normally provide an initial report within a week, we usually need a minimum of two weeks to access agency records.
Federal Research
| Federal Statutory Enactments | |
| Time Frame | Fees |
| Out 2 business days (under limited circumstances) | $1300 |
| Out 3 business days | $1150 |
| Out 4 business days | $1050 |
| Out 5 business days | $950 |
| 2 Weeks | $900 |
| 3-4 Weeks | $850 |
Legislative history research of federal statutory laws requires us to focus on the pertinent public law affecting the federal statute in question and the public law's accompanying committee reports, abstracts of hearing transcripts, congressional debates, and committee prints/reports or studies, along with miscellaneous presidential and useful secondary source documents. A lot of public laws are omnibus or comprehensive in nature, being a product of a five- to ten-year history. Thus, the proposed bills prior to the bill enacting the public law may be addressed by six to thirty earlier bills carrying similar language. These early bills reveal the development of the language and their reports often provide helpful substantive discussion, history and debates. Also, omnibus bills generate congressional legislative documents that are equally very lengthy. Hence, the challenge to "gather it all" may easily turn into a time-consuming effort, with some cases requiring us to review thousands of pages of documents. We can customize the research if you have a point of focus in a code section or subdivision that allows us to cull through the bills to find the pertinent origination of the focus and to gather the relevant bills and accompanying materials and reports. The file materials generated by the committees are not readily available from them or the National Archives, which imposes a 20- to 30-year hold on the files. We have developed the capacity to locate surviving and available materials through our local Northern California Congressional Depository libraries and the University of California government publications collection. Please note that we charge a fee per public law for transmission. Please contact our office to discuss these expenses.
Federal Regulations
Federal regulations can be researched, focusing on the publications in the Federal Register, within a one to two week period for $675 per section. A longer timeframe of two or more weeks would incur a charge of $575 per section. If acquisition of an agency's file material is desired, and this can be done via telephone, a second research fee of $575 per rulemaking file, plus expenses, is charged. Should a trip to Washington D.C. be necessary, we will discuss with you the related charges.
Other States
Research on the law of other states can be accomplished by phone contacts from California. Our fees for this type of research range from $575 to $775 per enactmentdepending on timeframe choice, plus expenses. The timeframes can range from within a week to two or more weeks. On-site research can also be conducted. Our rate is $100 per hour where we are given two weeks to complete the research plus all expenses, including travel, meals, copying, delivery, etc. Please let us know if the research is needed more quickly and we can discuss the options available as well as the related charges.
When you call us at (800) 666-1917, we will quote the fee to you in advance. You may also visit our online store here.
Local Ordinance Research
Research on local ordinances can be accomplished on terms very similar to research on other states. It is not unusual that on site research must be conducted in which case an hourly billing rate will apply. All expenses are also included. Please call us to discuss this project, (800)666-1917.
Fees Can Be Recovered As Cost of Suit
In VAN DE KAMP vs. GUMBINER (1990), 221 Cal. App. 3d 1260,1290 to 1293; 270 Cal. Rptr. 907, 926 to 927, the court reviewed a trial court's award of our fees as costs of suit. In a lengthy discussion, the court found our fees, as claimed by the Respondent in the lower court, met all the criteria under Code of Civil Procedure Section 1033.5, and that the trial court did not err in awarding our fees as a cost of suit.
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