Concise Guide to Legal Research and Writing / Edition 3

by Deborah E. Bouchoux

Overview

Noted author Deborah Bouchoux's Concise Guide to Legal Research and Writing is a shorter legal research and writing text that provides a building-block approach to the fundamentals of legal research and writing. This clear, well-organized text is designed for the introductory legal research and writing course for paralegal students. Bouchoux covers Legal Research and Legal Writing in a concise and pragmatic manner, making it ideal for abbreviated legal research and writing courses and online courses.

All-new research assignments in each chapter give students practice with both conventional print resources and online sources. Helpful charts, diagrams, and sample pages from research resources help students understand complex topics. In addition, Practice Tips in each chapter offer realistic and helpful suggestions for workplace success and Ethics notes are included throughout the book. Using Shepard’s in Print Form, a Sample Legal Memorandum and a Sample Court Brief are included in the appendices.

Key Features:

• New research assignments
• Chapter 3 (Statutory Law) includes a discussion of the new titles added to the United States Code
• Discussion of the new website GovInfo for free, official, and authenticated documents from all three branches of the government
• Discussion of new sources for conducting research, such as the Law Review Commons (Chapter 6), which provides free access to thousands of law review articles.
• Discussion of new tools such as Lexis for Microsoft Office and Thomson Reuters’s Drafting Assistant
• Extensively revised discussion of computer-assisted legal research in Chapter 8
• New information on practical concerns in citing to the Internet in Chapter 9
• Revamped discussion of citation form (Chapter 10)
• The information relating to Shepardizing using print volumes of Shepard’s has been moved from Chapter 11 to its own back-of-the-book Appendix
• Information on new research management tools such as Zotero, Juris-M, and Evernote
• An in-depth Instructor’s Manual includes an overview of the text, sample syllabi, tips on teaching strategies, chapter-by-chapter resource information, answer keys for all assignments, and a Test Bank.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781454873341
Publisher:	Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.
Publication date:	10/25/2016
Series:	Aspen College Series
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.10(d)

Table of Contents

Section I. Legal Research: Primary Authorities

1. Finding the Law and Introduction to Legal Research
2. The Federal and State Court Systems
3. Statutory Law
4. Case Law and Judicial Opinions
5. Locating Cases through Digests and Annotated Law Reports

Section II. Legal Research: Secondary Authorities and Special Research Issues

6. Secondary Authorities
7. Special Research Issues

Section III. Legal Research: Using Electronic and Computer Resources

8. The Digital Library: LexisNexis, Westlaw, and Non-Print Research Tools
9. E-Research: Legal Research Using the Internet

Section IV. Legal Research: Citing and Validating the Authorities

10. Legal Citation Form
11. Updating and Validating Your Research

Section V. Putting It Together: An Overview of the Research Process

12. Overview of the Research Process

Section VI. Legal Writing: Putting Your Research to Work

13. The Basics of Legal Writing
14. Strategies for Effective Writing
15. Legal Correspondence
16. Legal Memoranda
17. Legal Briefs
18. Proofreading and Document Design

Appendix A. Sample Legal Memorandum
Appendix B. Sample Court Brief

Glossary