Testing the Limits of WestlawNext

Law students in Advanced Legal Research courses at two law schools completed a series of exercises designed to explore several discrete aspects of WestlawNext. Professor Peoples reports the results of this study concerning the impact of WestlawNext's pricing model, user interface, and search algorithm on research results. The article concludes with suggestions for improvement to WestlawNext and a call for librarians to become more involved in training students to use WestlawNext.     

Playing to Their Passion: A Legal Research Course that Resonates with Law Students

The first year of law school is chock-full of new experiences. Students can become overwhelmed in the face of so much change that they forget why they chose law school as a career path. They often lose sight of their end goal and need a touchstone to ground them back to their initial interests. Legal Research is the ideal first-year class to connect the acquisition of legal skills with interesting topics in a way that encourages students’ engagement in their present and future learning. By adding a student-selected subject context to their class, Legal Research instructors can incorporate contextualized learning and active learning techniques that improve student engagement and student learning. This article discusses the transformation of a generic, required, first-year legal research course into one that divides into four small (18–20 students) classes, each with one of four topics: patent, trademark and copyright, traditional practice, and social justice. In addition, it envisions future innovations to improve student engagement and student learning.     

Bankruptcy: A Legal Research Course

Several aspects of the subject matter and practice of bankruptcy law lend themselves to use as the underlying subject matter for a course in advanced legal research. Although the unique institutions and procedure in bankruptcy cases call for specialized instruction, the structure of the substantive field around an integrated, codified statute and the intersections of state and federal jurisdiction provide plentiful jumping-off points to reinforce important general concepts of strategic and thoughtful legal research practice. The first half of this article presents an introduction to the field as a basic substantive grounding necessary to any law librarian pondering a legal research course grounded in bankruptcy law. The article also familiarizes the prospective research instructor with the major sources of law in the field and assesses numerous secondary sources and research tools covering the field with an eye to which print and online sources will be of the best anticipated value to today's legal research students. Model syllabi are proposed for either a larger, three-credit course or for a one-credit minicourse in specialized research that might either stand alone or serve as a supplement to a substantive course or seminar in the field.     

Outcomes Assessment and Legal Research Pedagogy

This article explores application of a taxonomic approach in legal research pedagogy to outcomes assessment based on Prof. Paul Callister's adaptation of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives which integrates instructional design and learning activities compatible with formative assessment during the learning process and summative assessment at its conclusion. It reviews the development of outcomes assessment initiatives by legal educators and the development of outcomes assessment standards by the American Bar Association for the accreditation of law schools.     

Teaching Specialized Legal Research: Administrative Law

In an effort to provide more attention to the legislative and administrative law processes than typical first year legal research instruction can provide, the author created a specialized legal research course on legislation and administrative practice and procedure. Set forth within this article is a very brief background on the substantive law an instructor for a course on this topic would need to know. Also included is an overview of the resources taught, assignments given, and evaluation tools used.     

Legal Research Boot Camp: One Approach to Meeting the Research Needs of Law Students

This article describes the legal research boot camp offered at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. It is an intensive, one-week course offered the first week of the summer break to prepare students for their summer clerkships. It is also a vehicle to teach law librarianship students how to teach legal research.     

From a Trickle to a Flood: A Case Study of the Current Index to Legal Periodicals to Examine the Swell of American Law Journals Published in the Last Fifty Years

Using the lists of journals indexed in the Current Index to Legal Periodicals from the last fifty years, this article analyzes the increase in the number of general law reviews, specialized law journals, student-edited journals, and peer-edited and refereed law journals during the last half-century. Data from the Current Index to Legal Periodicals were combined with further data collected from HeinOnline, American Bar Association (ABA) statistics, and U.S. News & World Report statistics. Comparison of these data not only shows a massive increase in the number of law journal titles being published but also suggests a correlation between the number of law journals published by a law school and its student population, length of time that it has been accredited by the ABA, and its U.S. News & World Report ranking. This article also contains a list of all law journals currently indexed by the Current Index to Legal Periodicals including each journal's date of initial publication, in addition to a list of all print student-edited law journals published by ABA-accredited and provisionally accredited U.S. law schools.     

The Pedagogical Value of an Integrated Approach to Legal Research Instruction: Overcoming Student Resistance to the Use of Print Sources and Striking a Balance That Instills an Appreciation of the Strengths and Weaknesses of Both Print and Online Sources

The ABA Legal Technology Survey Reports from 2006 to 2012 reported that, on average, 51% of attorneys “regularly” used print materials. Given the propensity of law students to default to online research, this article describes the results of a three-year longitudinal study of an integrated approach to teaching first-year legal research. This approach required students conduct legal research tasks both online and in print sources, and to evaluate their experience. The objective of this approach was to transform the legal research experience from a “treasure hunt” into a much higher level of engagement based on Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning.     

Cost Effective Legal Research

Abstract

Legal researchers need to be able to efficiently retrieve information in a cost effective manner. To do this, they must be familiar with the various information formats and be able to evaluate these formats. This article reviews the various information formats, discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each format, suggests research strategies, and reviews Internet sites that provide legal information.     

English Legal History Research

Abstract

Questions about English law that require some historical research are not uncommon.This article will discuss the sources that can be found in a typical U.S.academic law library to answer these queries.     

论图书馆的法治环境

图书馆的法治环境是对图书馆服务和与图书馆的生存、运营、发展密切相关的所有方面具有高效能、全方位、综合性保障功能的法律体系 ,不仅仅是制定图书馆专门法。它至少应包括 4个方面相互配套、相辅相成的法律法规 :图书馆专门法、图书馆相关法、图书馆行业自律规范 ,与图书馆有关的国际条约、协定等。参考文献 16。     

Teaching Legal Research

ABSTRACT

Questions about the importance and viability of legal research and writing as a part of the law school curriculum are not novel. Confronting these questions head-on, however, is a responsibility that should be handled by law librarians. This article addresses the issue of teaching legal research in an academic law library setting. The reasons why the author has pursued an aggressive approach when dealing with legal research instruction are explored. The methods employed to carry out that legal research instruction mandate are examined. creased as legal research and writing are more and more frequently combined and taught by writing faculty.¹ At the same time, the research skills of law students are on a downward spiral. Howland and Lewis document this plunge in an informative survey.² Law librarian Donald Dunn substantiates this decline and attributes it, in part, to “the increased emphasis in law schools on legal writing,”³ in consequence of which, while “legal writing entered the expressway; legal research took the off-ramp.”⁴ Further, law librarians and legal research have even been pummeled by one of America's most popular authors.⁵ In this environment, it may seem unwise to continue to advance the argument that academic law librarians should teach legal research. Notwithstanding the obstacles that face such instruction, law librarians have an obligation to press forward in this important work.⁶ Legal writing instructors have not demonstrated that they have the expertise to provide this instruc-tion.⁷ Likewise, law faculty have demonstrated that they do not have the interest in tackling the task.⁸ Say two authorities on the subject: “Regular faculty members generally do not teach a research course, and when they do decide to teach one, the results are invariably disastrous. Most law faculty members cannot teach legal research because they do not understand it themselves. If compelled to teach the course, they rebel.”⁹ Perhaps it is time for law schools to cede the stewardship for legal research instruction to those information professionals who have been trained and are qualified to teach legal research instruction -law librarians.¹⁰ And it is time for any reticent law librarians to accept the obligation to take a more proactive approach toward teaching legal research.¹¹     

Electronic Legal Research Tools: An Examination of the Resources Available,Training of New Attorneys,and Employer Expectations

Information literacy of recent law school graduates is examined from both the academic and professional sector. This article explores the literature on the different types of legal resources, the adequacy of legal research instruction provided to law students, employers’ expectations in regard to the legal research skills of recent graduates, and the information literacy of lawyers. This study consists of two surveys designed to determine the scope of the research instruction and resources available at law schools, and the electronic resources available to new associates at their employment, and to assess employers’ expectations of the research skills of their new associates. The surveys were sent to samples of Massachusetts’ law school libraries and law firms.     

Teaching Legal Research in American Law Schools:

Teaching legal research in the Law School setting has become a timely topic - forty percent of the journal articles that have been written about it have appeared within the last ten years and at least twenty-seven law schools have developed advanced legal research courses in addition to the basic course. We have attempted to compile an exhaustive bibliography of journal articles that in some way contribute to the pedagogical literature of legal research. We do not include articles which describe research techniques and sources, nor do we include articles devoted solely to the teaching of legal writing or advocacy.     

Legal Research Guide for the Customs Enforcement of ITC Exclusion Orders

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has recently become more important in the enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights. One significant part of ITC enforcement is the enforcement of ITC exclusion orders by the Customs and Border Protection (CBP). This Legal Research Guide seeks to provide comprehensive coverage of the primary and secondary sources available in the area of CBP enforcement of ITC exclusion orders, and focuses on primary sources because of the subject's relative newness and administrative law nature.     

Perspectives on Teaching Foreign and International Legal Research

ABSTRACT

This article discusses various models for teaching international and foreign legal research. In some law schools, international and foreign legal research is a semester-long course. In other law schools, international and foreign legal research is a component of an advanced legal research seminar or an international law course. Stefa-nie Weigmann presents an overview of teaching international legal research and describes her experience teaching in various formats. Kath-erine Topulos outlines some of the resources that are helpful for those who want to begin teaching foreign and international legal research. Jean Davis and Victoria Szymczak discuss teaching techniques and class activities for a semester-long course.     

Improving Digital Publishing of Legal Scholarship

Legal scholarship's main mode of formal communication, the law journal article, is mostly stuck in the print publishing model. By adopting some tools and practices made possible by digital communications, legal scholarship can become more accessible, flexible, and interdisciplinary. Instructive examples can be found in the science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM) journals. These practices are publishing in HTML and e-book formats and adopting persistent identifiers for scholarly works.     

Research Guide to Women's Studies for Law Students

The study of law is no longer limited to statutes, cases and administrative regulations. Indeed, it is no longer limited to law. Many law school courses examine the interplay of law and psychology, economics, poverty and other fields. One of the areas of frequent study has been the impact of women on the law, and of law on women's lives. Understanding courses such as feminist jurisprudence requires information from other areas, broadly called women's studies. Many students have never researched a multidisciplinary topic. This guide is intended to alert students and librarians to major guides and bibliographies published in the mid-1980s, and to provide a selected update to those sources.     

Recordkeeping research tools in a multi-disciplinary context for cross-jurisdictional health records systems

An Australian Research Council project, Electronic Health Records: Achieving an Effective and Ethical Legal and Recordkeeping Framework, brought together experts in recordkeeping, privacy, confidentiality, intellectual property, torts, medical law and ethics to address concerns with a major networked Australian health record initiative. The research required developing innovative research tools and understandings, which provides an exemplar for methodologies to address multiple-disciplinary concerns and priorities that set a precedent for future inter-disciplinary collaborative projects concerned with the analysis and design of such systems. This article provides an analysis of the research design, methods, tools and findings of the project which operated within a records continuum framework.