Law Commons^™

Print No More: U.S. Code, Code Of Federal Regulations, And The Federal Register, Timothy L. Coggins

Law Faculty Publications

If the United States Congress follows in the direction that it has been moving recently, the United States Code (2000 edition), the Code of Federal Regulations, the Federal Register, the official United States Reports, along with many other primary legal materials currently published and distributed to libraries through the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), will no longer be available in print for attorneys, librarians, legal assistants, and citizens. Congress has directed the Government Printing Office (GPO) to move toward electronic dissemination of materials and is reducing GPO’s funding so significantly that GPO soon may no longer publish these and other …

Avoiding Common Problems In Using Teaching Assistants: Hard Lessons Learned From Peer Teaching Theory And Experience, Edward R. Becker, Rachel Croskery-Roberts

Articles

A majority of American law schools rely on teaching assistants to help administer first-year legal writing, research, and analysis (LWRA) courses. Specifically, surveys jointly conducted by the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) and the Legal Writing Institute (LWI) consistently detail the extensive use many LWRA professors make of teaching assistants. Likewise, Julie Cheslik recognized in her article about her 1994 survey on the use of TAs in the typical LWRA course that "[o]ne of the most prevalent uses of peer teachers in the law school setting is the employment of upper-level law students as teaching assistants in the first-year …

Legal Research Tools: In Search Of The Best Format, Robin Schard

Articles

No abstract provided.

Search Tools: Skills And Strategies, Robin Schard

Articles

No abstract provided.

Playing Beyond The Rules: A Realist And Rhetoric-Based Approach To Researching The Law And Solving Legal Problems, Thomas Michael Mcdonnell

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The proposed realist and rhetorical approach to legal research applies to every conceivable legal problem and provides the student a conceptual foundation not only for solving any legal dispute, but for successfully completing any transactions with which he or she will be confronted. Part I of this article will demonstrate why law students should learn to research the relevant audiences in the legal drama and to research the unpublished and often unwritten rules and practices that these audiences follow. Part II will show how. Part III will present a comprehensive legal problem solving model that integrates these new dimensions of …

Creating Effective Legal Research Exercises, Amy E. Sloan

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Selecting And Designing Effective Legal Writing Problems, Grace C. Tonner, Diana Pratt

Articles

Legal research and writing courses are unlike most substantive first year law school classes in that they teach using the problem method. The success of a legal writing course depends on the quality of the problems. The purpose of this article is to provide some guidance for legal writing professors in designing legal writing problems. The article addresses (1) general considerations in problem design, (2) designing expository problems, (3) designing persuasive problems, and (4) sources of problems. In the first section, we discuss problem design as it relates to the overall goals for teaching the basic forms of legal analysis, …

Information Redlining: A List Of Selected Readings, Timothy L. Coggins

Law Faculty Publications

In earlier essays Henry Perritt, Marvin Anderson, Gary Bass and Patrice McDermott discuss the increasing use of computers to access information through the information superhighway, the Internet and online services, the increasing reliance on electronic formats by publishers and the federal government and the continuing debate about "information redlining." They indicate that information redlining is broader than just the availability and effects of technology and enhanced online services on lower income, minority and rural communities. It also deals with what information will be available to these groups. As more and more data comes in digital form and when some information …

The National Conference On Legal Information Issues: Selected Essays, Timothy L. Coggins

Law Faculty Publications

During the past decade, information technology developments have the dissemination and use of legal and legal-related In 1995, the American Association of Law Libraries, a organization with more than 5,000 members, convened the first "National Conference on Legal Information Issues" in conjunction with its eighty-eighth meeting. National Conference provided a forum for members of the legal and information communities to discuss the challenging problems and issues arising from the dynamic technological changes that have impacted the creation, dissemination and use of legal information. The National Conference assembled more than 2,500 librarians, law faculty and deans, judges court administrators, practicing attorneys …

Develop The Habit: Note-Taking In Legal Research, Penny A. Hazelton, Peggy Roebuck Jarrett, Nancy Mcmurrer, Mary Whisner

Articles

No abstract provided.

The United Nations Convention On Contracts For The International Sale Of Goods: Guide To Research And Literature, Claire M. Germain

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article maps research strategies concerning the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods and explores some research issues relating to the Convention and its interpretation. More specifically, it provides guidance on where to start, how to find the leading texts, commentaries and practitioners' guides, and where to find the texts of documents. Finally, this article describes some new Internet-based projects, examines where to find additional information, and examines how to keep "up-to-date" with this burgeoning area of international sales law.

What's On The Horizon?: A Report From The 1996 Conference For Law School Computing, Juliet Casper Smith

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Teaching Research To Faculty: Accommodating Cultural And Learning-Style Differences, Jane Thompson

Publications

Ms. Thompson explores the challenge of teaching law school faculty how to research effectively, especially in light of a unique "faculty culture" and differences in individual learning styles.

The Top Fives: An Internet Pathfinder For Law Librarians, Yolanda Patrice Jones

Journal Publications

Many law librarians are currently beginning to explore the Internet as a source of legal information. One of the most frequently asked questions after one gets an Interet connection is "Where do I go from here?" The following pathfinder is a list of what I consider to be the most important resources which will lead the legal researcher to the widest possible amount of legal information on the Internet. This list is purely subjective, and certainly not complete. I tried to stick to the 'top five' format as much as possible, but every so often I couldn't help myself from …

Our Perspective On Irac, Christina L. Kunz, Deborah A. Schmedemann

Faculty Scholarship

In this brief article, the authors present their view of IRAC, an acronym for Issue, Relevant law, Application to facts, and Conclusion. The authors conclude that IRAC can be taught so that students understand not only why it is useful as a thinking and writing tool, but also that proper use of it requires judgment and creativity. When IRAC is presented this way, the authors assert, it can serve first-year students well as they study legal writing. And they will operate accordingly, even without being aware of its influence, during their years as practicing lawyers.

The Top Fives: An Internet Pathfinder For Law Librarians, Yolanda Patrice Jones

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Many law librarians are currently beginning to explore the Internet as a source of legal information. One of the most frequently asked questions after one gets an Internet connection is "Where do I go from here?" The following pathfinder is a list of what I consider to be the most important resources which will lead the legal researcher to the widest possible amount of legal information on the Internet.

This list is purely subjective, and certainly not complete. I tried to stick to the 'top five' format as much as possible, but every so often I couldn't help myself from …

The Case Of The Disappearing Briefs: A Study In Preservation Strategy, Margaret A. Leary

Articles

Federal appellate court records and briefs are significant to researchers in many disciplines, but academic law libraries are discarding them. Ms. Leary chronicles the demise of paper holdings in law libraries, the rise of microforms, and the contents and usage of the National Archives and Records Administration's files. She then derives principles for preservation strategies that may apply to other categories of legal material.

"Mastering The Lawless Science Of Our Law": A Story Of Legal Citation Indexes, Patti J. Ogden

Journal Articles

Ms. Ogden presents a history of American legal citation indexes, covering early nineteenth-century attempts, the development of modern citator systems by Frank Shepard and others, online citation systems, and the potential for future improvements in an essential tool of legal research.

Teaching Legal Research: Past And Present, Joyce Manna Janto

Law Faculty Publications

For years librarians have debated which procedures will most effectively instruct law students in the art of legal research. Ms. Janto and Ms. Harrison-Cox trace the history of these efforts and propose a model program for the teaching of legal research.

Turning Online Time Into Quality Time: Searching Ohio Case Law On Lexis And Westlaw, Randy J. Diamond

Faculty Publications

This article discusses some of the lesser known complexities of LEXIS and WESTLAW and the necessity for evaluating these systems critically. Sample searches highlight the major differences between WESTLAW's and LEXIS's search protocols. Comparable features of each system are examined to show how users can improve the quality of their search results and to warn of unintended consequences when users misapply them. Strategies for formulating searches that retrieve relevant cases and prevent the exclusion of potentially relevant cases are considered, along with the economics of online searching. Although the searches presented are limited to Ohio case law, they are adaptable …

Review Essay: Legal Research Books, Manuals, And Guides -- More Than Enough, Fritz Snyder

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

This article surveys the current texts of legal research, noting features the author considers important and problems in the approaches of each.

Bounds And Beyond: A Need To Reevaluate The Right Of Prison Access To The Courts, Steven D. Hinckley

Journal Articles

The author argues that the 1977 United States Supreme Court decision in Bounds v. Smith insufficiently protects the right of prisoners to represent themselves before the courts by failing to require state and federal correctional facilities to establish and maintain adequately stocked prison law libraries and to provide prisoners with the option to use those libraries as their means of gaining meaningful access to the courts.

A Guide To Legal Research In The University Of Michigan Law Library (4th Ed.), Peter C. Schanck, Linda S. Maslow

Law Library Publications

The Guide is an outline of legal research method and a finding aid for the Michigan collection. The changes in the Guide over the last 10 years reflect fundamental change in the nature of legal research that are worthy of note.

Book Review. Legal Information Management Index, Linda K. Fariss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

An Overview Of Health Law Research And An Annotated Bibliography, Richard A. Danner, Claire M. Germain

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Legal Documentation And Research, Jurij Fedynskyj, John H. Crabb

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

If We Can't Teach Our Students To Write... Let's Examine Some Alternatives That May Have A Chance To Work, Michael Botein

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Indiana University Seminar In Jurimetrics, F. Reed Dickerson, Robert Birmingham, Joseph Brodley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Computer Systems For Research, Layman E. Allen

Book Chapters

The legal communication network today is characterized by two features. Any communication network in this century is marked by a division between the extent to which there is a man involved and the extent to which there is a machine involved. And, in terms of emphasis at this stage of things, at least within law, the emphasis is heavily upon the man communicating messages and relatively less upon the machine. The interesting question is, What is going on within this network that is amenable to being handled by machine and what, among those things, is it wise to do that …

A Personal Research System, F. Reed Dickerson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.