COURSE DESCRIPTION
An introduction to the bibliographic organization of legal literature and to techniques of legal research utilizing all formats; including print, online automated legal research databases, and the Internet. Lectures, readings, seminar discussions and problem sets focus on United States legal materials, primarily using federal law publications as examples.
INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE
The primary purpose of this course is to teach you the mechanics and search strategies of legal research. Legal literature is quite specialized. In order to do legal research you must understand a variety of unique tools and grasp the basic concepts and organization of the legal system. This course is devoted to giving you this understanding and knowledge of the system.
The goal is to equip each student with a working knowledge of basic legal research. to this end, class assignments will be given that require you to use the law library. As you do these assignments you will become familiar with the body of legal research materials. It is also intended to lay a foundation for providing reference service in all collections or libraries of legal materials.
COURSE GOALS
This course is designed for students to develop:
(1) Knowledge of the structure of Anglo-American law and legal bibliography.
(2) Knowledge of the basic sources and reference tools used in legal research.
(3) Knowledge of basic legal research and problem analysis skills.
(4) Knowledge of citation practice and methods in law.
(5) Strategies for updating legal research.
(6) Familiarity with computerized legal research databases.
(7) Familiarity with other technological resources in the law, including legal information resources on the Internet.
(8) Knowledge of terminology common to basic legal research.
(9) Strategies for effective legal research.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
Upon completion of this course, students should know:
(1) The principle sources and research tools essential to research in United States law in print and non-print formats.
(2) The basic organization of the American legal system and how it relates to the publications containing American law.
(3) The underlying structure and interrelationship of materials in American legal bibliography.
(4) How to use the basic legal research tools to answer a wide variety of legal questions and how to determine the current validity of authorities found in the search process.
(5) How to distinguish and describe the differences between primary and secondary sources of law.
(6) How to locate, read, interpret and update legal citations to all statutory, judicial and regulatory law.
(7) How to write proper citations to cases, statutes, regulations and other sources of American law.
(8) How to identify and locate the laws applicable to a particular subject or fact pattern.
(9) The two basic automated legal research databases, how they compare, their advantages and disadvantages and how they can be used in connection with print and non-print publications found in a law library.
(10) The principle sources useful for research in foreign, comparative and international law; including documents of state, national and international governmental organizations.
(11) Be familiar with the terminology used in connection with the American legal system and in legal research.
(12) Be familiar with the legal information that is available through network technology.
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