Legal Research Instruction Research Articles

Application of Trial-and-Error Theory to Legal Research Teaching

This article discusses the specific application of Thorndike’s trial-and-error theory in five aspects of teaching practice. It summarizes the key points of the application of the trial-and-error theory and suggests that incorporating the trial-and-error theory into the whole process of the teaching of legal research will increase the quality of legal research instruction.

Integration & Transformation: Incorporating Critical Information Literacy and Critical Legal Research into Advanced Legal Research Instruction

Integration & Transformation: Incorporating Critical Information Literacy and Critical Legal Research into Advanced Legal Research Instruction

Legal Research Instruction and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Insights for Classroom Management in Person and Online

Legal issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are critical for attorneys to recognize and understand in the practice of law. Legal research is one part of the law school curriculum through which students can significantly examine DEI issues. This article provides practical insights for managing legal research classrooms to support productive discussions about legal issues affecting diverse groups, including race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. The authors explore DEI-related classroom management for in-person, online, and hybrid formats; provide classroom management scenarios to consider; and discuss how each scenario might be handled to maintain a healthy classroom environment.

Developing Essential Research Skills for Law Practice: The Legal Research Competency Program

A long-standing gap exists between the legal research skills of many new law school graduates and the ones they need to succeed in the practice of the law. It is simply too difficult to teach legal research solely as part of the first-year required Legal Research & Writing course, which involves a single faculty member trying to teach a whole new way of writing at the same time as a whole new way of researching. Law librarians are the legal research experts in every law school, and they deploy a variety of solutions to try to address this gap. This article addresses one such solution: a noncredit legal research competency program to help students develop and strengthen their legal research skills. It is a flexible model that provides legal research instruction through a variety of techniques and across a variety of mediums.

PERTUMBUHAN DAN CARA KERJA DPR-RI PASCA REFORMASI

Post reformation of the role and function of the House of Representatives of Republik Indonesaian (DPR RI) is returned to its corridor as a legislative institution that runs the legislative function (making laws/constitution), besides running budgeting fungction together with the president, and the oversight function of the implementation of the law and the budget in the administration of government carried out by the executive. Related to the lack of productivity of The House of Representatives (DPR) to carry out the legislative function, The performance evaluation of this legislation is not only seen in terms of the quantity of products made but its quality is also an important factor in assessing legislation products. The identification problems in this research are: What is the Position of the House of Representatives in the 1945 Constitution of the State of the Republic of Indonesia, and What is the Process of the Growth of the Post-Reformation House of Representatives. In this research the library research method will be used or library research. Regarding this kind of research it is usually also called "Legal Research" or "Legal Research Instruction”. The position of The House of Representatives (DPR) after the amendment of the 1945 Constitution four times turned out to further strengthen its existence as the sole legislator. Although in the 1945 Constitution the amendment results also gave the President authority, but the authority he owned was not as big as The House of Representatives (DPR). And the process of the growth of the House of Representatives (DPR) Post-Reformation has strengthened the authority of the legislative instituion, in this case the House of Representatives of Republik Indonesian (DPR-RI) to maximize its role and function as a check and balances institution, after being strengthened, the House of Representatives (DPR) becomes tyrannical over the executive even over the state, because of its power and authority so great.

Research Across the Curriculum: Using Cognitive Science to Answer the Call for Better Legal Research Instruction

This article explores why and how law schools can use principles from cognitive psychology to respond to the need for graduates to have competency in legal research skills by adopting legal research across the curriculum. This article first explores the history of the tension between increasing skills instruction and doctrinal teaching, the academy’s response to criticisms about the lack of skills instruction, and how this response has led to an undervaluing of skills instruction within the academy and by law students. It then turns to calls for better research instruction, specifically the call for including legal research across the curriculum and the challenges to implementing such a curricular change. Next, it examines the competencies a legal researcher needs to possess and the current placement and state of legal research instruction in the academy and reviews the changes in legal research resources. It then examines cognitive science and psychology to examine how students learn best. Finally, it argues that including research across the curriculum would allow students to achieve the needed competency in legal research without placing undue burdens on law faculties.

Curricular Changes in Legal Research Instruction: An Empirical Study

This article examines components of curricular design of a legal research class as impacting student performance. Expertise of instructor and use of the inverted, or flipped, classroom are specifically explored. Eight years of exam performance on an oral legal research midterm is used to measure student performance and success of various components of curricular design.

Curricular Changes in Legal Research Instruction: An Empirical Study

This article examines components of curricular design of a legal research class as impacting student performance. Expertise of instructor and use of the inverted, or flipped, classroom are specifically explored. Eight years of exam performance on an oral legal research midterm is used to measure student performance and success of various components of curricular design.

Legal Research Training at Middle Temple Library

AbstractThis article, written by Adam Woellhaf, describes the legal research training offered by Middle Temple Library to Inns of Court members. It examines the challenges of designing and delivering legal research training to practitioners, as well as offering guidance and advice to others in their own legal research training efforts. It also looks at the potential for using mobile technology in legal research instruction.

Expansive Legal Research

AbstractThis article will introduce an approach to teaching legal research called Expansive Legal Research. The Expansive Legal Research perspective is based upon dissertation research on legal information behavior at a law school legal aid clinic. This approach is inspired by an educational perspective called Expansive Learning, which in turn has roots in the psychological theory called Activity Theory. The Expansive Legal Research perspective includes elements inspired by Expansive Learning and Activity Theory such as a focus on an activity-centered context of both the individual and social aspects of human behavior; the design-oriented nature of human problem-solving; the role of tacit knowledge and unwritten rules in daily activity and practice; and a cultural historical approach to learning and development, where both the user and their tools are undergoing a constant process of growth and change and transformation. An Expansive Legal Research approach, and the theory it is based upon, may provide new insights into legal research instruction, and may be a useful tool for legal research instructors.

The Need for Experiential Legal Research Education

With thirty-five percent of a new attorney’s time and over thirty percent of all attorneys’ time being spent conducting legal research, law schools cannot produce practice-ready graduates without significant legal research instruction. Although attorneys hiring new associates routinely report that new hires’ research skills are insufficient, most firms are unable or unwilling to take on the cost of preparing their new associates to perform the skills they are expected to perform as members of the legal profession. Furthermore, legal research is closely tied to each of the four competencies laid out by the ABA in Standard 301, which requires law schools to ensure that their graduates are ready to be effective, responsible members of the legal profession. Since overcrowded first year skills courses are usually the only mandatory law school course with any time spent on legal research instruction, most law schools cannot honestly state that they meet these requirements without a shift in the availability of legal research courses throughout all three years of law school. With most legal research courses already having significant experiential components, designating legal research courses as experiential would allow schools to both increase offerings in legal research and to meet the ABA’s newly-expanded six credit experiential course requirement for every student. When structured appropriately, stand-alone legal research courses clearly meet the requirements laid out in the simulation category of experiential courses.

Essential Research Skills for New Attorneys: A Survey of Academic and Practitioner Law Librarians

Legal research is generally regarded as an essential skill for attorneys. Despite this fact,research skills of new attorneys continue to be regarded as poor by law librarians. As law schools attempt to address this deficiency, particularly by adding advanced legal research courses, academic law librarians are increasingly involved in legal research instruction. Given this, it is important to ascertain whether academic law librarians and law librarians in legal offices agree as to the most important skills and materials for new lawyers to be familiar with. This paper reports and analyzes the results of a survey conducted among academic and practitioner law librarians in the Southeastern United States and Washington, DC area regarding legal research skills and materials.

Research Analysis and Planning: The Undervalued Skill in Legal Research Instruction

This article describes a method of research analysis and planning for legal problems. It introduces the framework of research plan, log, and product and provides a detailed research plan and log that students can use as a template for learning research. The article suggests how to teach the method in legal research classes, shares some of the author's experiences in teaching the method, and addresses some possible criticisms of this approach.

Electronic Legal Research Tools: An Examination of the Resources Available, Training of New Attorneys, and Employer Expectations

Information literacy of recent law school graduates is examined from both the academic and professional sector. This article explores the literature on the different types of legal resources, the adequacy of legal research instruction provided to law students, employers’ expectations in regard to the legal research skills of recent graduates, and the information literacy of lawyers. This study consists of two surveys designed to determine the scope of the research instruction and resources available at law schools, and the electronic resources available to new associates at their employment, and to assess employers’ expectations of the research skills of their new associates. The surveys were sent to samples of Massachusetts’ law school libraries and law firms.

An Old Problem Needs a New Solution: Incorporating Librarian-Led Legal Research Instruction into Directed Research

This article discusses how Rutgers School of Law–Camden implemented a new pilot program for directed research that was designed to help improve students’ research and writing skills through mandatory research and writing instruction.

Teaching Research Using an Information Literacy Paradigm

Legal research technology has changed dramatically in the last fifteen years, and traditional legal research instruction needs to be modified for the modern age. This article introduces the concept of information literacy as the ideal framework for a new paradigm for legal research pedagogy, and offers advice (including five basic foundational principles) about teaching legal research using an information literacy paradigm.

The Pedagogical Value of an Integrated Approach to Legal Research Instruction: Overcoming Student Resistance to the Use of Print Sources and Striking a Balance That Instills an Appreciation of the Strengths and Weaknesses of Both Print and Online Sources

The ABA Legal Technology Survey Reports from 2006 to 2012 reported that, on average, 51% of attorneys “regularly” used print materials. Given the propensity of law students to default to online research, this article describes the results of a three-year longitudinal study of an integrated approach to teaching first-year legal research. This approach required students conduct legal research tasks both online and in print sources, and to evaluate their experience. The objective of this approach was to transform the legal research experience from a “treasure hunt” into a much higher level of engagement based on Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning.

Research Analysis and Planning: The Undervalued Skill in Legal Research Instruction

Research Analysis and Planning: The Undervalued Skill in Legal Research Instruction

Developing Legal Information Literate Law Students: “That Dog Will Hunt”

The legal profession has been adamant about the need for law schools to more adequately prepare law students for legal practice. Criticisms concerning a student's practical legal skills, such as the ability to conduct legal research, are prevalent. As the legal profession continues to transform, the need for law students and new attorneys to be “legal information literate” prior to being hired is quite evident. In order to instill competent legal research skills, legal research instruction must focus both on incorporating legal information literacy skills and on understanding how students learn. For this reason, teachers of legal research should rethink teaching strategies and explore different teaching methodologies.

A Methodical Approach to Legal Research: The Legal Research Plan, an Essential Tool for Today's Law Student and New Attorney

This article lays out an approach to teaching legal research through an examination of historical and contemporary approaches to legal research and research instruction. It discusses creating a research plan and reviews the most commonly used legal research texts. It concludes with sample research assignments and assessment tools.