Teaching Legal Research Methods

Abstract

The political science undergraduate curriculum has long included courses dealing with substantive aspects of the law. At one time the traditional constitutional law course served as an introduction to the relationship of law and politics. More recently courses such as civil liberties, criminal justice, judicial process, and law and society have become frequent political science offerings. While these and other courses teach students procedural and substantive aspects of the law, many such courses contain student research components as a learning device.Too often, however, political science/ public law training has ignored teaching about the uses of resources for legal research. Students are often directed to the law section of the library to face a batch of new and bewildering resource materials. As a result, Unfamiliar or seemingly intimidating materials such as Shephard's or law digests were often ignored or improperly used by students.