Teaching Legal Professionals How To Do Research
Teaching Legal Professionals How To Do Research

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How To Perform Legal Research

Administrative Law Research Guide

6 June 2002. The Georgetown University Law Library offers this guide to researching administrative law (agency regulations). It provides information about print as well as electronic sources. A useful feature indicates how various electronic versions (commercial and free) differ.

Basic Guide to Researching Foreign Law

12 October 2005. Mary Rumsey, Foreign, Comparative & International Law Librarian at the University of Minnesota, prepared this guide to finding sources of foreign legal information. She provides a brief introduction, and then outlines general starting points, starting points for popular subjects, library catalogs, subject collections, LexisNexis and Westlaw, periodicals and Web-based resources.

Best Guide to Canadian Legal Research

9 May 2002. Catherine P. Best (featured in Law of the Super Searchers) offers this guide on how to find Canadian law. She covers basic research skills like planning and organization, finding and assessing case law, updating your research findings, and more. She also provides information about using electronic resources and offers an extensive guide on conducting statutory research.

BookRags

14 September 2005. BookRags describes itself as "one of the premier online sites for classical study guides, book notes, eBooks, and essays." Covering topics in English, History, Math and Science, BookRags provides study guides, essays, literature summaries, biographies, electronic copies of classical texts, and more. You may search or browse its extensive collection of study materials.

Canadian Statutory Research

25 April 2002. From Best Guide to Canadian Legal Research, this research guide offers extensive resources and strategies for finding the law of Canada and its provinces.

China Business - Research Guide

12 October 2005. Part of the University of Pennsylvania's Lippincott Library research guides, China Business provides bibliographic citations to library and Internet resources on the subject. It covers general works on the topic as well as sources providing company information, news, trade, law, finance, statistics and market research.

Congressional Research Tutorials

29 April 2008. The University of California at Berkeley Library offers Flash tutorials on how to find Congressional materials in the Library and on the Internet. Currently, the tutorials cover finding legislation, hearings and debates. Use of the tutorials requires the Flash video player.

Connecticut Law About Criminal Records

15 December 2005. Connecticut Judicial Branch Law Libraries maintains a guide to obtaining criminal information in Connecticut. It provides useful links to pertinent information buried in state Web sites. One of the links, for instance, connects you to a letter that explains when arrest records may be disclosed. There are also links to relevant statutes and forms.

Covering Crime and Justice: a Guide for Journalists

19 November 2007. The non-profit organization, Criminal Justice Journalists, makes available this extensive online guide on crime reporting. Chapters cover the crime beat, juvenile justice, drug law enforcement, racial and ethnic issues, crime victims, journalism ethics, covering the courts, how prosecutors work, gun control and domestic violence.

Author credentials are provided for each chapter. Some chapters provide sidebars. All chapters offer an annotated list of additional sources.

You can search the online content or opt to display it from a pull-down menu of pre-set topics. You can also browse each chapter. There does not appear to be a way to download the e-book or its individual chapters.

Dear Abby: Should I Retain a Trademark Lawyer?

22 January 2003. Beneath this cheeky title lies solid advice from intellectual property lawyer Martin Schwimmer. While commenting on an editorial that appeared in the Sacramento Bee, Schwimmer explains the complexity of trademark research. The commentary may be somewhat self-serving, but he is right.

E.B. Williams Library Tutorials

9 May 2002. Georgetown Law Library offers several tutorials for conducting various types of legal research. These cover statutory and case law research, using secondary sources, international legal research, administrative law research, conducting legislative history, and more.

Federal Case Law Materials: A Research Guide

26 April 2002. The Ross-Blakley Law Library at Arizona State University offers a research guide for finding case law in traditional sources. It does not cover Internet research strategies or court Web sites.

Federal Legislative History Research

9 February 2001. The Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C. offers this document, which explains, in detail, the process of researching, compiling and sifting through the legislative documents for legislative intent. It links to relevant Web sites and provides an extensive bibliography of law journal articles and other Web sites dealing with federal legislative history research.

Federal Register Tutorial, The

7 October 2002. The National Archives & Records Administration offers a tutorial covering the Federal Register. Learn what it contains and how it is organized. Discover various access points and research tools. Learn about the Code of Federal Regulations and how to do Federal Register research online, and more.

Guide to Downloading Patent Copies on the Internet

22 February 2005. The Invent Blog makes available a briefly annotated list of Web sources for downloading multi-page TIFF or PDF copies of patents or patent applications.

Guide to Legal Research in Bosnia and Herzegovina, A

9 January 2006. Librarian Mirela Rozajac authors this guide on finding Bosnia and Herzegovina legal resources. It covers the government structure, legal authority, the courts, legal education and legal publishers.

Guide to Using the United States Code

9 May 2002. The Legal Information Center at the University of Florida Levin College of Law offers this detailed guide on how to use the codified version of U.S. statutes, or the United States Code. It explains what it is, how it is arrange, its updating schedule, and more. This is an excellent introduction, and handy reference sheet, for new law librarians and lawyers.

Guy Montag

16 August 2007. Law librarian David Goldman launched this blog, which "explores the ramifications for research and historical memory when we embrace electronic data at the expense of print." While the commentary is brief, it points to references well worth reading; e.g., the shrinking size of the law library, bias in Wikipedia articles, a KeyCite error, and more.

"The title of this blog 'Guy Montag,' is also the name of the main character from Ray Bradbury’s classic novel Fahrenheit 451. 'He is a California fireman who begins to question why he burns books for a living. Montag eventually rejects his authoritarian culture to join a community of individuals who memorize entire books so they will endure until society once again is willing to read.' (LA Weekly)"

Harvard Law School Library Research Guides

24 February 2003. Harvard Law School Library makes available their collection of legal research guides. Covering General Library Research, Anglo-American Law Research, International, Foreign and Comparative Law Research, and Electronic Resources, many of the guides cover Web-based resources as well as what Harvard has in its library. Some of the guides also inform about how to use certain resources.

How to Effectively Locate Federal Government Information on the World Wide Web

5 October 2004. This site by two government librarians supports a hands-on workshop on finding government information on the Web. It offers a brief explanation of the structure of federal government in the U.S., a list of general and government-specific search tools, a compilation of sources of federal law, sources of statistics and demographic data, and issues researchers should consider when searching the Web.

How to Find International and National Labour Law

14 February 2008. The International Labour Organization (ILO) offers this guide to finding sources of legal information at the ILO library. The guide comprises 2 summaries of resources available - one on international law and the other on national law. Each presents relevant titles with descriptions that include information about where to find the titles. Each guide also links to relevant databases (look for these on the right-hand side of the page).

Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Research Guides

5 October 2004. The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) offers a small collection of legal research guides for European Union member states. While the guides focus on the IALS collection, they provide helpful background information about the resources of particular jurisdictions. Generally, the guides cover primary sources of law, treatises and periodicals. Unfortunately, the formatting of the guides is not consistent, and can be difficult to follow if you want to research sources for more than one country.

inter alia

27 January 2003. Revised 16 June 2003. Texas lawyer Tom Mighell comments on news stories, Web sites, and other sources of information about research issues (especially legal), Internet use, intellectual property, search engines and more. Every Sunday, the site features the newsletter, Internet Legal Research Weekly. The newsletter contains the same type of information, but typically about different news stories and Web sites. It also offers a technology or research tip (or both!). The RSS news feed consists of headlines and a lead sentence.

Internet for Lawyers

19 March 2003. A good starting place for legal research, Internet for Lawyers provides book reviews and articles about technology, law and law firm marketing as well as factual and legal resources. Novice researchers, as well as those who just want to keep up with useful Web-based resources, will find something of interest here.

Journalist's Guide to the Federal Courts, A

26 May 2005. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts offers a guide for journalists, which "is intended to assist reporters assigned to court coverage." It provides a short introduction to the federal courts and recommends the more extensive publication, Understanding the Federal Courts. It presents information about key players and potential interview sources for federal district and appellate courts. It outlines the appeals process, as well as certain procedures in a civil case and during trial. It explains what might happen during a criminal investigation and defines common terms used in bankruptcy. The publication also contains a glossary of court terms.

Law Scout

13 January 2004. The University of Akron, School of Law Library offers this searchable directory of legal research guides. Browse the directory by legal topic or search it using a variety of criteria. Entries include information about the research guide as well as a link to it. If you register (not necessary to browse or search the directory), you can save your search.

Law Skills

26 April 2002. Sarah Carter, Law Librarian at the University of Kent at Canterbury, offers two research tutorials. One covers an introduction to case law in England and Wales. The other instructs about finding Acts of Parliament.

LawPaths

20 January 2004. A project of the U.K. Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), LawPaths contains information about articles, guides, tutorials and other materials that support the learning and teaching of legal information research skills. Currently, the site contains a brief description of existing materials and a link to the original material. Arranged by institution, finding relevant materials is easier if you know who produced them. Nonetheless, those willing to browse the extensive list of resources might find helpful fact sheets, guides to using online legal research systems and subject bibliographies.

Legislative Research, Inc.

28 July 2005. Legislative Research Inc. conducts research in California legislative issues for a fee. In addition to promoting the business, the Web site offers basic advice on how to compile a California State legislative history. It defines legislative intent (under California law), offers several complimentary resources and links to federal and state legislative sources.

Nolo Statutes & Cases

26 April 2002. Self-help legal publisher Nolo offers brief advice about conducting basic legal research. Take care, however, in selecting sources referenced by the site. In some cases, more authoritative sources exist. (And sometimes links point to the wrong sources, as is the case with the reference to Pennsylvania statutes.)

Patent Searching

25 August 2004. Tutorial and Guide to Online Resources and Information: McKinney Engineering Library at University of Texas at Austin offers a guide of exceptional quality for those new to patent searching. Available in three parts, the guide provides a short treatise on patents as well as two interactive searching tutorials. The treatise explains why patent searching is important. It defines different types of patents, describes what is patentable and identifies patent myths. The search tutorials cover the basics of patent searching and patent application searching. The one on patent searching discusses brainstorming, using the Index to the U.S. Patent Classification, looking up classification codes, reviewing classification definitions, examining individual patents, keyword searching and additional practical advice.

Research and How-to Guides

28 October 2004. The School of Law Library at Southern Illinois University provides a compilation of research guides for students. While designed for use in the law school's library, others will also find them helpful. For example, Frank Houdek's "Using a West Digest to Find Cases by Subject" serves as a checklist for using the print digests. There are also guides on using statutory codes, conducting a legislative history in Illinois, researching Illinois regulations, and more.

Researching South African Law

15 November 2005. Law librarians Amanda Barratt and Pamela Snyman outline South African legal structure as well as online and print sources of legal information. They include several noteworthy free legal information Web sites. In addition to sources for general law, they provide references for topical law issues. This useful bibliography and pathfinder is hosted by the Hauser Global Law School Program at New York University School of Law.

State Legislative History Research Guides on the Web

28 July 2005. Compiled by Jennifer Bryan, Documents Librarian at Indiana University School of Law Library, this resource links to research guides and bibliographies sponsored by libraries or government agencies. It covers all 50 states.

Swedish Law on the Internet

9 January 2006. Law librarian Ingrid Kabir authors this guide on finding sources of Swedish law. It covers the Swedish legal system, constitution, legislative and case law sources, legal gateways and portals, and more.

United Nations Documentation: Research Guide

28 October 2004. This UN research guide presents an overview of the types of documents and publications issued and explains how to find them. It suggests useful starting points and summarizes various indexes for finding UN documentation. It also covers the General Assembly, Security Council and Economic and Social Council. Special attention is given to topics on human rights, international law and peace-keeping.

Why Do Legal Research?

20 January 2004. The Legal Research Centers of West Virginia offers a collection of brief essays on conducting legal research. Written for the lay public or beginning law students, these essays explain legal research basics. They cover the basic research methodology, types of civil and criminal law, types of legal documents, understanding case law and how to read a legal citation.

Zimmerman's Research Guide

10 December 2003. EDITOR'S CHOICE. Lawyer-librarian Andrew Zimmerman authors this extensive guide to finding legal and factual information. Hosted by LexisNexis via its LexisONE portal, the guide provides brief explanations about specific aspects of legal, business and factual research. You can search the guide by selecting the option for querying the entire LexisONE site. You can also browse it using the comprehensive index provided on the front page of the guide. Entries include linked cross-references for finding related information.

   
 

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Created: 25 April 2002
Revised:
29 April 2008
URL:
http://www.virtualchase.com/topics/how_to_guides.shtml

Suggestions: Genie Tyburski, tvceditor [at] virtualchase [dot] com