Kaitlyn Elisabet Bonsell
Senior Paralegal
Overview
Kaitlyn Bonsell uses the skills she developed over five years of paralegal experience, along with her diverse educational and employment history, to assist mass tort product liability litigation attorneys with problem solving, factual research, analysis, and trial support.
Using tools like Lexis, Westlaw, and (most importantly) Google, Kaitlyn tracks down the information her attorneys need. Whether she is reviewing medical literature and hospital websites to identify or bolster a potential alternate causation theory, searching for evidence of bias in opposing counsel’s experts, or just pulling a litigant’s social media history, she is, like one of her earliest Dickensian heroes, “always Moleing, you see,” until she has the answer.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that her first ever purchase was a book called The Way Things Work, Kaitlyn makes sure that she understands the technology she is using so that she can exploit its full potential. In particular, she’s a master of spreadsheets, PDFs, and Word documents, utilizing the tools at her disposal to standardize non-standard data, provide pragmatic analyses, and create efficiencies that minimize the time spent drafting documents and indices.
Kaitlyn also assists attorneys with document review, bringing the same care and creativity to the analysis of a witness’s communications with regulatory authorities that she, in a previous career, would have brought to an analysis of Paradise Lost. As a trained close reader, she is adept at connecting each individual document to a topic of interest in a litigation or even the litigation as a whole, and thus identifying and succinctly discussing the important documents for her attorneys to review.
Kaitlyn brings control to the potential chaos of a trial. She has supported several trials as part of a larger team, working with multiple firms and managing a joint trial list with thousands of exhibits. She also has experience supporting a trial as the sole trial paralegal. She is able to perform at a high level for long hours, managing the ever-changing priorities and expectations that make trials as exciting as they are challenging.
Previous Experience
Before becoming a paralegal, Kaitlyn spent several years as a teacher. She taught a variety of subjects, including literature, history of philosophy, Latin, and choir to students from third grade through high school at a small private school; she taught SAT® and ACT® prep classes with Kaplan ® Test Prep; and she taught a First Year Writing Seminar, “Shakespeare from Stage to Screen,” at Cornell University.
Personal Interests
In her free time, Kaitlyn enjoys singing in church and community choirs, writing film and television reviews and literary analyses, and traveling to London.
Credentials
Education
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Paralegal Studies Program ABA Approved (2014)
Rutgers University
B.A. in English, Music, and Ancient & Medieval Civilizations, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa (2009)
Honors
- Faegre Drinker — Pro Bono Honor Roll, 2022-23