Law Commons^™

Covid, Climate Change, And Transformative Social Justice: A Critical Legal Research Exploration, Nicholas F. Stump

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This Article explores intertwined contemporary crises via the Critical Legal Research framework (“CLR”), as initially developed by the critical legal scholars Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. CLR as conceived of in this Article entails a truly radical approach to the legal research and analysis regime. While the traditional research regime—as taught in law schools and utilized in practice—functions to homogenize research outcomes towards hegemonic ends, a critically “reconstructed” approach to legal and broader socio-legal research permits more transformative futures. Specifically, CLR as deployed within such modes as radical cause lawyering can help engender genuine systemic “re-formations” of the ecological political …

Identifying Red Herrings In American Legal Research, Erin Gow

Faculty Scholarship

This article presents useful clues for British law librarians and legal researchers conducting research on American laws and legal systems. It focuses on general guidelines and key sticking points the author found when transitioning between legal research in the American and British jurisdictions.

Key skills introduced include the ability to:

• differentiate between federal and state legal jurisdictions in the U.S.,
• recognize key differences in American legal terminology and construct searches using American terms,
• analyze and select key American legal resources for different types of research questions,
• and identify American standards of legal citation.

Liberty And Justice For All?: A Pathfinder On The Use Of Lyrics As Evidence In Civil And Criminal Trial, Stephanie Washington

Upper Level Writing Requirement Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Hunting And Gathering On The Legal Information Savannah, Susan Nevelow Mart, Adam Litzler, David Gunderman

Publications

This article asks, what is it like for novice researchers to research real-world legal problems using four platforms: Bloomberg Law, Fastcase, Lexis Advance, and Westlaw? The study findings produced some surprises, as well as some clear implications for teaching legal research.

7 Everyday Useful Westlaw Tips. Plus, Bonus Trick List!, Aamir S. Abdullah

Publications

No abstract provided.

Researching Administrative Law, Keith Lacy

Law Librarian Scholarship

Administrative law is a broad subject area concerning the laws and procedures governing administrative agencies. It also encompasses the substantive law produced by those agencies — most commonly in the form of regulations (rules) or agency decisions. This article highlights a few major resources for researching administrative law in the United States.

Arkansas Practice Materials: A Selective Annotated Bibliography, Jessie Wallace Burchfield, Melissa Serfass

Faculty Scholarship

Whether you are a legal professional or a novice legal researcher, this annotated bibliography of Arkansas practice materials provides current and relevant state-specific information about available resources. The bibliography integrates online and print resources, grouped by topic rather than format. Each source is annotated with helpful information.

Detailed information about primary legal materials such as court cases, statutes and administrative regulations is included. Information about secondary sources such as treatises, practice manuals, forms, and websites, is also covered.

It is organized in five main sections: Primary Materials, Government Resources, State Specific Resources, General Jurisprudence, and Practice Materials by Topic.

2020-2021 Annual Report, Caroline L. Osborne

Law Library Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

Researching Marijuana Law, Seth Quidachay-Swan

Law Librarian Scholarship

This article provides a brief overview of the current legal framework governing the regulation of marijuana at the federal and state levels in the United States. It also provides an overview of the state of Michigan’s current regulatory framework and resources for attorneys interested in learning more about marijuana regulation.

A Review Of Grey Literature Cited By Food Loss Law And Policy Scholarship, Angela Hackstadt

University Libraries Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, state and federal programs, rules, and legislation attempt to address the social, economic, and environmental impacts of food waste. Research on the efficacy of these interventions rely on a variety of grey literature resources. Grey literature is valuable to policy research but may be overlooked because it is not published commercially and is often deemed unauthoritative. This review focuses on the use of grey literature in food waste law and policy scholarship to identify the most used sources and to determine what, if any, archiving strategies authors use. Recommendations for librarians and researchers are discussed.

Georgia Legal Research, Amy Taylor

Books

This open source textbook authored by Amy Taylor was designed to provide University of Georgia School of Law students with a comprehensive guide to Georgia legal research. Using this text in combination with appropriate assignments, student objectives include the ability to select, evaluate, and use appropriate legal research tools with an emphasis on cost-effective research and proficiency in the following topics:

• Developing an efficient and cost effective research strategy
• Advanced searching skills in legal research databases
• Case law, including docket research, court rules, and verdicts & settlements
• Statutory law, including legislative materials and legislative history
• Administrative regulations, rules, and related …

Researching Colorado Employment Law, Jill Sturgeon

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Transparency Of Quantitative Empirical Legal Research (2018–2020), Jason Chin, Kathryn Zeiler, Natali Dilevski, Alexander Holcombe, Rosemary Gatfield- Jeffries, Ruby Bishop, Simine Vazire, Sarah Schiavone

Faculty Scholarship

Scientists are increasingly concerned with making their work easy to verify and build upon. Associated practices include sharing data, materials, and analytic scripts, and preregistering protocols. This has been referred to as a “credibility revolution”. The credibility of empirical legal research has been questioned in the past due to its distinctive peer review system and because the legal background of its researchers means that many often are not trained in study design or statistics. Still, there has been no systematic study of transparency and credibilityrelated characteristics of published empirical legal research. To fill this gap and provide an estimate of …

The Cognitive Power Of Analogies In The Legal Writing Classroom, Patricia G. Montana

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

New law students traditionally learn better when they can connect what they are learning to a familiar non-legal experience. Therefore, the use of an analogy, which can be defined as a comparison showing the similarities of two otherwise unlike things to help explain an idea or concept, is an obvious way to facilitate a student’s connection between the new and what is already known. An analogy is a logical step in introducing the complex processes of legal research and analysis by attempting to simplify the alien structure of summarizing that legal research and analysis into a coherent piece of …

Dean's Desk: Iu Maurer Research Focusing On Most Topical Issues Of 2020, Austen L. Parrish

Austen Parrish (2014-2022)

The three major stories of 2020 — the COVID-19 pandemic, the heightened awareness of racial injustice and the election — have made this year one that we will remember. While we couldn’t have envisioned all that would happen at the beginning of the year, our faculty are producing useful and thought-provoking scholarship on all these topics.

I often use my Dean’s Desk columns to celebrate student and alumni achievement, to describe new and innovative programs in our curriculum, or to share how the law school supports and collaborates with community organizations and the courts to provide pro bono legal services …

Research Across The Curriculum: Using Cognitive Science To Answer The Call For Better Legal Research Instruction, Tenielle Fordyce-Ruff

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The American Bar Association (ABA), law students, and employers are demanding that law schools do better when teaching legal research. Academic critics are demanding that law professors begin to apply the lessons from the science of learning to improve student outcomes. The practice of law is changing.

Yet, the data shows that law schools are not changing their legal research curriculum to respond to the need of their students or to address the ABA’s mandate. This stagnation comes at the same time as an explosion in legal information and a decrease in technical research skills among incoming students. This article …

Resources For Foreign, Comparative, And International Legal Research, Kate E. Britt

Law Librarian Scholarship

In our increasingly globalized world, a legal issue outside of American domestic law can pop up in a variety of circumstances. Commercial transactions, marriage and custody issues, immigration statuses, and more may involve the law of another nation or be governed by an international treaty. This article outlines some resources to help you tackle foreign, comparative, and international legal issues, whenever they arise.

Adding Legal Research To The Bar Exam: What Would The Exercise Look Like?, Patrick J. Meyer

Akron Law Review

Various authors have criticized the current bar exam format for not testing law practice skills. This is in spite of the ground-breaking MacCrate Report, the seminal publication of the practice-ready movement, which nearly 30 years ago listed ten fundamental practice skills. One of these ten Fundamental Lawyering Skills is legal research, which is still not tested on bar exams. The focus of this article will be on deficiencies pertaining to a lack of legal research readiness in the practice of law. My proposal is to add an interactive legal research exercise to the Multistate Performance Test (MPT), requiring applicants …

Nothing Says "I Love You" Like A Correct Bluebook Citation & Formatting The 1l Brief, Jason Tubinis, Heather Simmons

Presentations

Law Librarians Heather Simmons and Jason Tubinis walked students through the necessary formatting for 1L brief success, as well as shared their top tips for Bluebook citations. Formatting topics included Table of Authorities, Table of Contents, page numbering, and styles. Students were encouraged to bring their laptops for hands on help with both Mac and PC versions of Microsoft Word.

2018-2019 Annual Report, Caroline L. Osborne

Law Library Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

Non-English Materials For The English Speaker : European Languages, Erin Gow

Erin Gow

So many legal materials are in languages other than English worldwide, that it is inevitable that most of us will need to find or access one of these documents at some point. Foreign, comparative, and international law (FCIL) librarians often work with materials in languages in which they are not fluent, and can provide useful ideas and insight for the non-FCIL specialist faced with this type of research. This portion of a 2019 AALL webinar titled "Non-English Materials for the English Speaker" focuses on European languages, and provides practical guidance in finding English translations of European laws, tips and techniques …

An Introduction To Legal Research, Anne Burnett, Stephen Wolfson

Presentations

As part of UGA Summer Academy Legal Camp two law librarians teamed up to give an introduction to legal research to high school students from across the country, including tips and strategies for using Google effectively.

Non-English Materials For The English Speaker : European Languages, Erin Gow

Faculty Scholarship

So many legal materials are in languages other than English worldwide, that it is inevitable that most of us will need to find or access one of these documents at some point. Foreign, comparative, and international law (FCIL) librarians often work with materials in languages in which they are not fluent, and can provide useful ideas and insight for the non-FCIL specialist faced with this type of research. This portion of a 2019 AALL webinar titled "Non-English Materials for the English Speaker" focuses on European languages, and provides practical guidance in finding English translations of European laws, tips and techniques …

This Is Your Brain On Research: Cognitive Theory And Assignment Construction, Jennifer R. Mart-Rice, Franklin Runge, Alyson Drake

Jennifer Mart-Rice

Sustainable And Open Access To Valuable Legal Research Information: A New Framework, Alex Zhang, James Hart

Scholarly Articles

This article evaluates the current status of access to foreign and international legal research information, analyzes the challenges that information providers have experienced in providing valuable and sustainable access, and proposes a model that would help create and facilitate effective and sustainable access to valuable foreign, comparative, and international legal information.

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

Law Faculty Books and Chapters

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 …

Fake News, Alternative Facts, And Disinformation: The Importance Of Teaching Media Literacy To Law Students, Marin Dell

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Inside The Black Box Of Search Algorithms, Susan Nevelow Mart, Joe Breda, Ed Walters, Tito Sierra, Khalid Al-Kofahi

Publications

A behind-the-scenes look at the algorithms that rank results in Bloomberg Law, Fastcase, Lexis Advance, and Westlaw.

Research Resources For Michigan Criminal Law, Kate E. Britt

Law Librarian Scholarship

Few areas of the law are as consequential to the personal lives of those involved as criminal law. The law can, and does, change quickly, and attorneys need to stay abreast of the latest developments to effectively represent their clients. Thankfully, modern government bodies publish current primary law (and many useful secondary sources) online. The sites outlined below will take users to reliable sources of Michigan criminal law and procedure.

Beyond The Annals Of Murder: The Life And Works Of Thomas M. Mcdade, Jennifer L. Behrens

Faculty Scholarship

Thomas M. McDade is best known (if not well-known enough) for his seminal 1961 reference bibliography, The Annals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders from Colonial Times to 1900. Beyond that singular text on early American murder trial accounts, though, lies more than 70 additional publications on American legal history, law enforcement, and literature, gathered together for the first time in an annotated bibliography of McDade’s lesser-known writings. The article also examines McDade’s fascinating life and varied career as an early FBI agent, World War II veteran, corporate executive, and true crime chronicler.