Legal Writing and Research Commons^™

Advancing Public Interest Practitioner Research Skills In Legal Education, Randy Diamond

Randy Diamond

The information revolution has dramatically altered the legal research landscape, expanding the bounds of legal authority. Practitioner research requires more than traditional legal research. It also encompasses factual investigation, non-legal information, interdisciplinary and audience research. Many new lawyers are ill-prepared to research novel and unusual situations, to cope with unwritten laws and local customs, and to meet shifting authority expectations. Symptoms of underdeveloped research skills include: unfamiliarity with specialized practitioner resources, lack of vision in connecting research to problem solving, and superficial analysis. This article suggests law librarian and clinical faculty collaborations to help prepare law students to conduct sophisticated …