Vietnamese Law

Abstract

This bibliography is designed to assist students and scholars of both the history and contemporary features of the Vietnamese legal system. In particular, it takes a broad view of the interconnectedness of law and society. The result of positioning law and society as mutually reflective is that the bibliography includes materials shedding light on Vietnamese history, politics, culture and social and economic development. Although it does not offer an exhaustive listing on these wider issues, it equips the researcher to explore these issues as a corollary of legal research.     

Standing at the Gates: A New Law Librarian Wonders About the Future Role of the Profession in Legal Research Education

ABSTRACT

There have long been complaints about the legal research skills of law school students and recent graduates. In this article the author focuses on the period between the release of two important reports on legal education, the MacCrate Report in 1992 and the Carnegie Report in 2007, examining how law librarians and other professionals involved were engaged in responding to the problem. The author concludes that if law librarians want to be involved more fully in legal research education, some changes or reexamination of our professional culture and positions may be necessary.     

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     

Initiatives and Referenda in Michigan: A Research Guide

SUMMARY

Initiatives and referenda are a key part of the democratic process in Michigan, but they are one of the most difficult types of legal materials to research. This guide provides an overview of the history of the I&R process in Michigan, a general outline of how the process works, and a selected list of resources, both primary and secondary, that provide valuable information for researchers seeking to explore this important part of Michigan's legislative system.     

Robots,Blockchain, ESI,Oh My!: Why Law Schools Are (or Should Be) Teaching Legal Technology

Abstract

The author explains the important of introducing legal technology into the law school curriculum. At a time when innovation in law is happening at a rapid-fire pace, the need for these courses is indisputable.     

Translating Legal Terms in Context

Abstract

This article reviews a number of Spanish/English legal dictionaries, evaluating the relative merits and features of each. Translating legal terms requires an understanding of both the legal context in which the term is used and the legal context in which the translation is intended. Thus, this review of legal dictionaries concentrates on evaluating the authors'/editors' understanding of how the terms are used in the two legal cultures, as well as in two different languages.     

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.     

Comparison of Research Speed and Accuracy Using WestlawNext and Lexis Advance

ABSTRACT

In 2010, Thomson Reuters released a new search engine to the legal academy called WestlawNext. WestlawNext's single-search-box approach revolutionized the legal research process. LexisNexis followed with its own next-generation search engine, Lexis Advance. This study compares the speed and accuracy of WestlawNext and Lexis Advance for basic legal research questions. Fifty-five participants answered five legal questions in each system. We reviewed their results and research trails to determine how the systems compared on speed and accuracy. Our results indicate few significant differences between the two systems for basic legal research tasks utilizing keyword searches.     

Legal Publishing: Establishing Context through the Lens of Disruptive Innovation

ABSTRACT

As legal research tools come and go, an understanding of the continuing changes in legal publishing can provide a better understanding of those developments. One way in which law librarians can gain insight into the dynamic legal publishing world is by looking through the lens created by the innovative disruption model as proposed by Clayton Christensen almost 20 years ago. This article suggests that the Christensen model can provide valuable context to what is happening and may happen in legal publishing in the future.     

The Internet Alternative

ABSTRACT

The author discusses the practical nature of Internet legal research by providing examples of actual research problems solved on the Internet and by providing a selective listing of Internet legal resources for judicial materials, federal legislative and administrative materials, and state materials.     

Electronic Research Beyond LEXIS-NEXIS and Westlaw

ABSTRACT

Lower-cost alternatives to LEXIS-NEXIS and Westlaw have entered the scene to give users without deep pockets access to electronic legal and congressional research. Loislaw.com, V., Congressional Universe and CQ.com on Congress may open up electronic research to new users and lure away some of the big legal research services' customers as well.     

Making the Connection

ABSTRACT

The author discusses the application of three different learning style models to successful teaching in legal research courses.     

Helping Historians Write Legal History “From Below”

SUMMARY

In the past fifty years, legal history has turned from a concentration on legal texts to a broader view of the social, political, and economic conditions that affected a particular legal system at a given time in the history of a nation. To assist scholars in realizing the potential of these new methodologies, law librarians who work with historical materials must have a firm grasp of the developing trends in legal historiography. This article outlines the information sources that a librarian may use to become familiar with the literature in legal historiography and, using practices at the Harvard Law School Library as examples, suggests ways that a library can form collections of non-traditional genres of research materials that support these new approaches to legal history.     

Theirs Not to Reason Why,Theirs but to Make Law Review or Die

Abstract

The following annotated bibliography seeks to provide a quick research tool for people interested in understanding and, of course, improving legal scholarship in the United States. In Part I, we provide a brief introduction to the law review system. In Part II, we evaluate various articles that critique the law review system. In Part III, we examine law review articles that critique law review students themselves. In Part IV, we summarize some of the articles that recount the history of law reviews. In Part V, we compile several articles that look at citation trends for legal scholarship. In Part VI, we discuss miscellaneous articles about law reviews.     

The Role of Rare Books in Law Libraries

SUMMARY

No other profession is so firmly rooted in historical precedent as the law. Rare law books can be used to promote a knowledge of the history of the law, the history of legal practice, the development of legal writing, the history of legal education, and the history and spread of legal printing and publishing. Since law books cover the entire spectrum of human activity, they can also be used to study any aspect of human thought or behavior that has been the subject of legislation or litigation. Contact with rare books touch the spirit in ways that the law library's other holdings cannot.     

Relational tensions,narrative, and materiality: intergenerational communication in families with undocumented immigrant parents

ABSTRACT

This research explores the competing discourses and relational tensions that emerge in intergenerational communication in immigrant families with undocumented parents through in-depth interviews with undocumented Latino/a parents and their children living in New York City. Through the articulation of three themes, we illustrate how material realities affiliated with a lack of legal status incite unique discursive tensions in family relationships that manifest in family narratives. This study lends scholarly insight into the ways undocumented immigrants and their families communicatively navigate their uncertain life terrain through conversation about immigration status, conflicting career dreams, and hybrid cultural values. Using these findings as guidance, we offer practical applications related to communal coping and family advocacy for professionals and volunteers working in immigrant-serving community organizations.     

Research in radio,television, and film by graduate students in speech

Speech graduate students perform varied types of research in the radio‐television‐film field. An analysis of the nature of this research suggests some important conclusions.     

“Unknown Symbols”: Online Legal Research in the Age of Emoji

Abstract

Over the last decade, emoji and emoticons have made the leap from text messaging and social media to legal filings, court opinions, and law review articles. However, emoji and emoticons’ growth in popularity has tested the capability of online legal research systems to properly display and retrieve them in search results, posing challenges for future researchers of primary and secondary sources. This article examines current display practices on several of the most popular online legal research services (including Westlaw Edge, Lexis Advance, Bloomberg Law, Fastcase, HeinOnline, and Gale OneFile LegalTrac) and suggests effective workarounds for researchers.