LexLibris

Improving Legal Research Instruction: Texas Tech's Certificate of Excellence in Legal Research Program

As law schools send their graduates off to practice law and their first and second year students to summer programs, many are all too often ill-equipped to perform legal research effectively. Arturo Torres, Associate Dean, Law Library and Computing, and Professor of Law at Texas Tech School of Law, describes below a comprehensive, systematic and convenient legal research program for Texas Tech students.

"The Law Library at the Texas Tech University School of Law offers an extracurricular non-credit certificate program in legal research. By completing this program, students earn a credential that can be listed on their resume as proof of the research skills they offer prospective employers.

"To earn the Certificate of Excellence in Legal Research, students must complete 30 clock hours of instruction and assessment. Each student must complete 20 hours of required courses and 10 hours of electives. Each class consists of two or three hours of lecture and demonstration and one hour of skills assessment. To earn credit for each class, the student must satisfactorily complete the one-hour skill assessment. A representative sample of a semester course schedule is below.

"Students may begin the program as early as the second semester of their first year of law school and complete the required number of hours anytime before graduation. Classes in print research, electronic research, and various other general research topics are offered every semester and during the summer session. Students register online based on their needs and availability.

"The program has been in existence for about two years and we are proud to report that as of spring 2008 eight students have received their certificates. Many students are currently in the pipeline and working toward certification.

"Based on our experiences over the last two years, we will be revamping the program in summer 2008. We will be reviewing the course offerings, including required courses, rigor of skill assessment, and general program administration streamlining. The program is further described at http://www.law.ttu.edu/lawlibrary/library/coe/.

-- Arturo Torres, Associate Dean, Law Library and Computing, and Professor of Law, Texas Tech School of Law

Source: Law Librarian Blog

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 09:33 AM | Permalink

The University of California at Berkeley has created several video tutorials that demonstrate how to do Congressional research in the following areas, each of which is highly useful for law students:

Finding bills and Congressional debates from 1989 forward on Thomas

Finding a Congressional report on LexisNexis Congressional

Finding debates from 1873 to the present in print in the Congressional Record.

Note that the video tutorials last from two to five minutes apiece, and that they require Macromedia’s Flash player to be installed on your computer.

Source: Virtual Library Cat's Eye View blog

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 02:08 PM | Permalink

Via the HeinOnline Blog, here are two useful research tips:

Do you have the name and author of an article from a Law Journal, but do not know the journal name or citation and need to find it in HeinOnline? This tip outlines how to conduct a search for the article in 4 easy steps, starting at the log in screen. Read how at: http://heinonline.blogspot.com/2008/04/heinonlines-tip-of-week-looking-for.html

A Code of Federal Regulations Quick Reference Guide is now available in HeinOnline. This guide outlines the various options available for navigating this collection, from browsing to using the Title and Part Quick Locator, to searching for specific variables. If you often find yourself looking for a specific section of a part, check out the various search examples in the guide.

This guide can be accessed from the Educational Resources page or by clicking on the Resources tab inside the CFR library and then clicking on the link under the Help & Training section. See how at: http://heinonline.blogspot.com/2008/04/cfr-quick-reference-guide-now-available.html

And don't forget about the HeinOnline YouTube Channel, full of research tips and demonstrations. Visit at http://www.youtube.com/HeinOnline08

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 02:56 PM | Permalink

Tariq Hafeez, President of and General Counsel for LegalEase Solutions LLC, discusses outsourcing legal research on the Legal Process Outsourcing blog.

Source: Law Librarian Blog

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 10:08 AM | Permalink

"Ellie Margolis (Temple) Surfin' Safari - Why Competent Lawyers Should Research on the Web, 10 Yale Journal of Law & Technology __ (2007), reviews the various ways in which the adequacy of a lawyer's research can be measured. If you are interested in the possiblity that legal research may become a bar exam component, check out this article. Here's the abstract from SSRN:

'The easy availability of information on the internet has drastically changed the way that lawyers conduct legal research, but has it affected the standards for competency to which lawyers are held? This article explores the ways in which judges' and lawyers' expectations have been shaped by technological changes in the last two decades.

The article reviews the various ways in which the adequacy of a lawyer's research can be measured - the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, court rules such as Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and malpractice claims. All of these approaches reveal that competence is measured both by what techniques are standard in practice and by what sources judges look to in supporting their decisions. By both of these measures, a competent lawyer today must go beyond Lexis and Westlaw and conduct legal research directly on the internet.

Because many legal materials are increasingly available only online, and because judges are showing a greater willingness to rely on non-legal information available on the web, the article concludes that a lawyer cannot competently represent a client without conducting research on the internet. The conclusion urges law schools and the practicing bar to be aware of this development and instruct law students and new lawyers accordingly.'"

Source: Law Librarian Blog

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 04:26 PM | Permalink

The Feminist Law Professors blog has some useful tips for research assistants in their Sept.12 post:
http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=2289

Here's a really good one:
14. Get to know the law librarians. They’re smart, knowledgeable and have heard most requests before. They can do a whole lot more than just help you with Westlaw problems or point you toward the F.Supp. Often the librarians have been working with certain professors for years, and they know what the professor means when she asks an RA to do x or y.

Thanks to Connie Lenz for the head's up.

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 09:01 AM | Permalink

From the Out of the Jungle blog comes news of an important study that will be of interest to readers who are educators and researchers:

Today's edition of Inside Higher Ed features an article entitled "If You Teach Them, They Will Be Happy" that discusses a study, written by Kennon M. Sheldon, professor of psychology at the University of Missouri at Columbia and Lawrence S. Krieger, professor of law at Florida State University, published in the current issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

The study compares recent classes at two law schools, one in the second tier and one in the fourth tier. At the first law school, faculty scholarship was emphasized, which was why the school ranked in the second tier. At the second school, good teaching was emphasized. The students at both schools had similar undergraduate GPAs and LSAT scores. What is interesting, however, is that students at the second school performed significantly better on the bar exam than did students at the first school. Professor Krieger, one of the co-authors, stated "that it was 'almost shocking' to see 'how significantly the fourth tier students outperformed the second tier law students on the bar.'" He went on to state that "'it makes sense psychologically--the students at the fourth tier school were happier--and it makes sense that they would have learned more from better teachers.'"

Read more...

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 01:27 PM | Permalink

"Study: New Lawyer Skills Are Lacking"
A study by Berkman Fellow (Harvard Law School), Gene Koo, in partnership with LexisNexis, finds that most new lawyers lack critical practice skills, including adequate legal research skills. The study targeted a broad range of necessary skills. This summary, however, focuses on shortcomings in research skills.

New lawyers lack critical evaluation skills. "One law firm partner, for example, complained that his newer associates regularly grab data from the Web without checking their provenance and accuracy." While this short-coming is cited in the context of online legal research, one wonders if it is then possible to possess the skill when reading print materials.

RELATED: Law Librarians Debate Student Research Skills
CCH Law Student eMonthly, October 2006
("As a law student, you may not be aware you and your classmates are the subject of an on-going debate between Canadian law firm and law school librarians. Many librarians in firms assert that the law schools are not doing enough to give all students a solid grounding in legal research. Students who come out of law school with excellent research skills have more often than not honed these skills either while taking elective advanced legal research courses, or through practical experience outside the classroom. We see that some students are missing this component, however, whether it is inadvertent or by choice. Law school librarians sympathize and try to do more, but often feel the problem is too large to be resolved without significant changes to the law program itself. While both sides have thus far remained amicable, a solution has yet to be found.")

RELATED: Quality Legal Writing Instruction and ABA Accreditation Standard 405
Association of Legal Writing Directors and the Legal Writing Institute, 21 January 2000
("Studies that explore outcomes assessment show that legal education is failing in the field of Legal Writing. As an academic discipline, Legal Writing has developed the ability to teach students how to express themselves well in writing and how to use the writing process as a tool for thinking. But many law schools treat this field and the faculty who specialize in it in ways that damage teaching and learning." This report also discusses inadequacies in legal research training.)"

Source: TVC Alert Research News, 30 March 2007, Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, http://www.virtualchase.com/tvcalert/transfer.asp?xmlFile=mar07/30mar07.xml

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 10:48 AM | Permalink

Odd name aside, Voice of the Shuttle (VoS) from UC-Santa Barbara is quite a handy tool for links to legal resources...and several other humanities disciplines. From "About VoS":
"Its mission has been to provide a structured and briefly annotated guide to online resources that at once respects the established humanities disciplines in their professional organization and points toward the transformation of those disciplines as they interact with the sciences and social sciences and with new digital media."

Check it out for yourself! http://vos.ucsb.edu/

Posted by University of Minnesota Law Library at 01:25 PM | Permalink