We’re celebrating our tenth anniversary and what a decade it has been! It’s been fun to think about where we’ve been over the past decade and where we hope to go as well as the changes in our lives and with technology. You may have seen our social media posts as we’ve reflected on this or received postcards announcing this milestone in the mail.
Below are some more of our thoughts on the projects we have worked on and the people we have worked with over the years, injected with some feedback received from several clients.
When we started, we had no idea that we’d take on such an interesting range of projects across various litigation practices. John Taylor and Matt Hammel founded the company to focus on potentially responsible party and manufactured gas plant investigations, industrial site reviews, and other litigation related research. They wanted to serve the unfulfilled niche – historical research primarily for litigation – that they noticed while working for a national history corporation dealing with Fortune 500 clients and major law firms on multi-million dollar cases.
In May 2006, the two decided to pool their extensive knowledge of federal, state, and local record collections as well as their experience in developing cost-effective research strategies and managing teams of researchers in the field to create Taylor & Hammel LLC.
Ten years later, T&H has grown and has had some amazing men and women working with us over the decade with backgrounds in history, archives, library science, natural resources, communications, and real estate development. While Matt Hammel is now a school teacher back in his native Minnesota, he still works closely with T&H on proposals and joins us in the field during the summer months.
During this time, we’ve developed close relationships with a number of clients. We even had a client work with us for a few weeks on an environmental project, which was quite a thrill for all of us:
“It was a sincere pleasure to work with your team. Those I worked with were extremely knowledgeable and super patient with someone who was trying to get more experience performing historical research. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to observe and learn.” — Barbie Harmon, Freeport-McMoRan Inc.
All of us are proud of the relationships we have developed with law firms and businesses throughout the U.S.
“Kelley & Ferraro, LLP has been working with T&H for ten years, during which time we have been provided prompt and detailed research to assist our clients, fair pricing, and great customer service. Our office looks forward to a continued working relationship with T&H.” — Joyce Reichard, Kelley & Ferraro, LLP
We’ve always focused on providing historical research services for litigation with an emphasis on environmental, toxic tort, and product liability litigation.
“Taylor & Hammel has provided our firm with outstanding research results over the past decade. They often provide research options that we would not have thought of. Their expertise is priceless. We look forward to working with them for another decade — or more.” — Eve Marie Conaway, Brookman, Rosenberg, Brown & Sandler
We initially developed a reputation for providing research services for asbestos litigation primarily related to Navy exposure cases.
“The deck logs that you found for me were very useful in substantiating my claim for the Veterans, without which I don’t know where I would have gotten needed information.” — Private Client
Over the decade, we have performed hundreds of comprehensive investigations of U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Maritime Commission vessels to understand the machinery and insulation aboard them for both Defense and Plaintiff firms.
More recently, the bulk of our projects have dealt with historical, environmental issues. We’ve become a sought after company for research related to Superfund sites throughout the country.
“Taylor & Hammel has provided me and my firm with top-notch historical research on a variety of environmental projects. [They] have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to plumb the depths of public and private records repositories to piece together arcane and complex histories. They consistently are able to distill reams of information in concise and easy-to-use reports, making the information both useful and accessible. I value my professional relationship with Taylor & Hammel and am grateful for their excellent work on behalf of me and my clients.” — Travis Waldron, Gallagher & Kennedy
We’ve dug into records related to water rights issues between states, land rights matters and patent issues for town sites on Native American lands, and legislative issues dealing with oil and drilling sites in Alaska.
“I am confident that without your having found and provided the transcript, we never would have known the extent of the effort Oklahoma went to in order to use Texas demand for water to justify its reservoir projects.” — Craig Corona, Waterlaw
“Everything you have provided us this morning is invaluable. The information you’re finding is a game changer for us.” — Nathan Bracken, Smith Hartvigsen PLLC
We have also been tasked with collecting land appraisal records related to railroad lines around the U.S. in an effort to establish ownership of right of ways and lands around these lines.
“Our surveying firm has used Taylor & Hammel to research the National Archives for railroad maps for the last 4 years. The T&H team has been great to work with and saved us a lot of time.” — Matthew L. Martini, PLS, PP, Keller & Kirkpatrick, Inc.
For the Sierra Club, we collected historical environmental data related to coal, crude oil, and natural gas accidents and disasters in the United States from 2004 to 2014 for a data visualization project which has been made available online.
“The Sierra Club hired T&H in 2014 to research and compile ten years’ worth of data on fossil fuels-related disasters across the United States. We used the data to populate an interactive map showing the breadth of disasters and their impact on communities. T&H provided high quality data and were a great pleasure to work with throughout the process.” — Sophie Matson, Sierra Club
We’ve taken on other one-off projects from time to time that aren’t necessarily related to litigation. Some of the more interesting ones included research in to Nixon’s “Enemies List” and reviewing and scanning records for the Federal Reserve Bank.
From the beginning, we’ve prided ourselves in being a small business that is responsive to our clients and their research needs in a timely manner. We’ve always maintained a neutral stance no matter which area of litigation or type of project we’re working on. We’re not advocates. We’re historians and researchers that expertly find the documentation our clients need.
“Taylor & Hammel has always provided professional customer service and a high quality end result. Additionally, each time they are tasked with a search, we’re provided with options that best fit our budget.” — Stacey Miller, O’Brien Law Firm
So, as we celebrate our anniversary, we wanted to take the opportunity to tell you a little bit more about ourselves both in our own words and our clients’. We’d also like to thank our clients — past, present, and future — for their business. What better way to do this then by offering 10% off a future research project? Please contact us for details.
