Researching the Law: Finding What You Need When You Need It [Connected eBook with Study Center] / Edition 3

by Amy E. Sloan

Overview

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Researching the Law: Finding What You Need When You Need It, Third Edition, guides students through a decidedly contemporary approach to legal research. Widely respected author Amy E. Sloan presents legal research as a process of efficiently filtering a vast quantity of available information. Simply put, students learn how to locate and identify the most pertinent and authoritative information available with the greatest possible expedience. Sloan's clear, concise explanations of essential research sources are presented in a context that speaks to the way lawyers do research today, with a flexible approach that works in a rapidly changing research environment. Part I explains how to define a research question; pre-filter content before beginning a search; conduct research using a variety of search techniques; and establish post-search criteria for filtering results. Part II describes essential features of individual sources of authority and search strategies unique to each source. Part III contains research flowcharts to help students plan research strategy for different types of research projects.

New to the Third Edition:

• The material on the weight of court opinions has been redesigned to address jurisdiction before level of court.
• The discussion of techniques for drafting effective word searches has been expanded and includes sample searches.
• New resources for evaluating and updating case research, such as visual mapping technologies and document analysis tools, are included.

Professors and students will benefit from:

• Complete coverage of fundamental principles
• A book that teaches students how to:

• • Define a research question
  • Pre-filter content before beginning a search
  • Search for information using a variety of techniques
  • Create and use post-search filtering criteria to target the most relevant information
  • Learn the essential features of important legal authorities, as well as the research strategies unique to each one
  • Use flowcharts to plan research strategy

• A concise and practical writing style that appeals to today’s students.
• An approach to legal research as a filtering process to identify the most pertinent and authoritative information from vast search results

• Diverse coverage of online sources, not solely emphasizing only one of the prominent ones

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781543813364
Publisher:	Wolters Kluwer Law & Business
Publication date:	02/27/2020
Series:	Aspen Coursebook Series
Edition description:	3rd ed.
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.38(d)

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Part I Research Process 1

Chapter 1 Introduction to Legal Research 3

A Introduction 3

B The research thought process 3

C A process for legal research 7

Chapter 2 The American Legal System 9

A Sources of law 9

B Types and weight of authority 12

1 Types of authority 12

2 Weight of authority 12

a Secondary authority: always nonbinding 13

b Primary authority: sometimes binding, sometimes nonbinding 13

c Summary of weight of authority 17

C How legal information is organized and cited 18

Chapter 3 Defining a Research Question 21

A What question do you need to answer? 21

B What terms are likely to describe what you are looking for? 24

C Search term chart 25

Chapter 4 Pre-Search Filtering 27

A How pre-search filtering affects research 27

B Criteria for pre-search filtering 29

C A process for pre-search filtering 31

Chapter 5 Research Tools and Search Techniques 35

A Selecting a research tool 35

B Common search techniques; citation, word, and subject searching 36

C Effective word searching 38

1 Types of word searches 38

2 Terms and connectors searching 39

a Terms and connectors search logic 40

b Drafting a terms and connectors search 41

Chapter 6 Working with Search Results 43

A Assessing search results 43

1 The organization of the results 43

2 Telling things apart online 44

3 Post-search filtering 46

B Updating research 48

C Refining, repeating, and ending the search 49

1 Is your research complete? 50

2 What if you do not find anything useful? 50

3 What if you find an overwhelming amount of information? 52

Chapter 7 Keeping Track of What You Find 52

Part II Researching Individual Types of Authority 57

Chapter 8 Legal and Non-Legal Secondary Sources 59

A Introduction 59

1 When secondary sources will be most useful 59

2 Limits on the appropriate use of secondary sources 60

B Methods of researching legal secondary sources 61

C Researching commonly used legal secondary sources 62

1 Legal encyclopedias 62

2 Treatises 63

3 Legal periodicals 64

4 American Law Reports 67

5 Restatements 68

6 Uniform laws and model acts 70

D Researching non-legal secondary sources 71

Chapter 9 Cases 73

A Introduction 73

1 The structure of the court system 73

2 Sources of cases 73

3 The anatomy of a published case 76

4 Unpublished, or non-precedential, opinions 77

B Methods of researching cases 78

C Researching cases using a digest 78

1 Online digest research 79

2 Print research with West digests 80

a Locating the correct digest set 80

b Locating topics and key numbers 83

c Reading case summaries 84

d Updating your research 85

D Emerging approaches to case research 85

Chapter 10 Citators and Other Updating Tools 87

A Introduction 87

1 The purpose of a citator 87

2 When to use a citator in case research 88

3 Terms and procedural concepts used in citator research 88

B Using a citator for case research 89

1 Shepard's in Lexis 89

2 KeyCite in Westlaw 92

3 BCite in Bloomberg Law 94

C Choosing among citators 95

D Staying up to date with alert services 96

Chapter 11 Statutes and Court Rules 99

A Introduction 99

1 The publication process for federal statutes 99

2 The organization of statutory codes 101

3 Types and sources of statutory codes 101

B Methods of researching statutes 103

C Using a citator for statutory research 105

D Researching rules of procedure 106

Chapter 12 Federal Legislative History and Administrative Regulations 109

A Federal legislative history 109

1 Introduction 109

2 The process of enacting a federal law 110

3 Types of federal legislative history documents 111

a Bills 112

b Hearings 112

c Floor debates 112

d Committee reports 113

4 Methods of researching federal legislative history documents 113

a Compiled legislative histories in print 114

b Government sources 115

c Commercial services 115

B Federal administrative regulations 116

1 Introduction 116

2 The process of adopting a federal regulation 117

3 Methods of researching federal regulations 118

4 Sources of federal regulations 119

a Government sources 119

b Commercial services 120

5 Using a citator for regulatory research 121

Part III Research Flowcharts 123

A General research flowchart 124

B Nonbinding authority research flowchart 126

C Flowcharts for four common types of research 128

1 State common-law research flowchart 129

2 State statutory research flowchart 130

3 Federal statutory research flowchart 131

4 State and federal procedural research flowchart 132

Appendix: Selected Research Resources 133

Index 139