Law Commons^™

Encouraging Engaged Scholarship: Perspectives From An Associate Dean For Research, Sonia K. Katyal

Sonia Katyal

No abstract provided.

Sources Of American Law: An Introduction To Legal Research, Tina M. Brooks, Beau Steenken

Tina M. Brooks

At its most basic definition the practice of law comprises conducting research to find relevant rules of law and then applying those rules to the specific set of circumstances faced by a client. However, in American law, the legal rules to be applied derive from myriad sources, complicating the process and making legal research different from other sorts of research. This text introduces first-year law students to the new kind of research required to study and to practice law. It seeks to demystify the art of legal research by following a “Source and Process” approach. First, the text introduces students …

Law Firm Legal Research Requirements And The Legal Academy Beyond Carnegie, Patrick Meyer

Patrick Meyer

What types of research resources must new hires know how to use, and in which format(s)? To answer this question, this article starts by identifying the historical research deficiencies of new attorneys. The author goes on to summarize four recent and regarded law firm practice skills studies, as well as results of the author's 2010 law firm survey. This article concludes by identifying a three part plan to improve the lacking research skills of new attorneys.

Empirical Work In Family Law, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

Until fairly recently, researchers have not done much theoretical work on the subject of family law. Although the move towards theoretical work is a positive one, unfortunately, most of the latest reforms in family law have been uninformed by empirical studies. Furthermore, the few empirical studies that have been conducted are replete with intractable problems.

In this essay, Margaret Brinig discusses some of the problems researchers have encountered in their attempts to conduct empirical work in the area of family law. For example, most researchers have used state cross-sectional data for their experiments. Reliance on this type of data can …