Legal Research In A Nutshell

Serving as both a text for beginning law students and a reference for experienced researchers, Legal Research in a Nutshell provides an overview of basic research methods. The expert authors discuss case law, statutes, secondary sources, and other research tools; they also analyze resources in more specialized areas, such as legislative history and administrative law. Completely updated with dozens of new Web addresses and 20 percent more illustrations of print and electronic sources, this comprehensive guide explains the investigative process using online databases, CD-ROM, and Internet resources, including free and commercial internet sites. Discussion also includes international and comparative law materials, as well as business and interdisciplinary research.

"This book looks not only at 'the law, ' but also at other aspects of the legal system, such as the history, politics, and structure of lawmaking institutions."--Preface, p. [vii].

Outlines the American legal system and tort law as they apply to sports from high school to professional, and discusses liability, drugs, discrimination, contracts, antitrust, labor relations, violence, gambling, and other topics.

Teaching Legal Research and Providing Access to Electronic Resources is an essential guidebook to teaching lawyers and legal researchers how to find the information they need. Law librarians and reference librarians will welcome its timely, effective, and innovative techniques for facilitating their patrons’legal research. According to the MacCrate Report, legal research is one of the ten essential skills for practicing law, and educating users in research skills is a crucial part of the law librarian’s job. Teaching Legal Research and Providing Access to Electronic Resources provides you with techniques for training your patrons in effective search strategies. This comprehensive volume will help you offer much more than a list of information on where the data is located. This helpful volume covers the full range of both users and resources, from helping first-year law students find cases in print to helping attorneys learn to use new Web sites and search engines. Its range includes academic, company, and public law libraries. Teaching Legal Research and Providing Access to Electronic Resources discusses formal ways to teach the skills of research, such as scheduled workshops, one-on-one tutorials, for-credit courses in law schools, and CLE-credit courses in law firms. In addition, it offers hints for seizing the teaching moment when a patron needs help doing research. Teaching Legal Research and Providing Access to Electronic Resources presents practical advice for all aspects of patron education, including: the rival merits of process-oriented versus results-oriented learning strategies; coordinating library education programs with courses in legal writing; teaching foreign and international legal research; using learning style theory for more effective classes; helping patrons overcome computer anxiety; lower-cost alternatives to Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw; using technology to deliver reference services.

Legal research is a fundamental skill for all law students and attorneys. Regardless of practice area or work venue, knowledge of the sources and processes of legal research underpins the legal professional’s work. Academic law librarians, as research experts, are uniquely qualified to teach legal research. Whether participating in the mandatory, first-year law school curriculum or offering advanced or specialized legal research instruction, law librarians have the up-to-date knowledge, the broad view of the field, and the expertise to provide the best legal research instruction possible. This collection offers both theoretical and practical guidance on legal research education from the perspectives of the law librarian. Containing well-reasoned, analytical articles on the topic, the volume explains and supports the law librarian’s role in legal research instruction. The contributors to this book, all experts in teaching legal research, challenge academic law librarians to seize their instructional role in the legal academy. This book was based on a special issue of Legal Reference Services Quarterly.

Concise Legal Research details the technical aspects of a huge number of legal sources and explains how to research law with confidence and in good time.This new edition focuses on the impact of online access and the need for the researcher to move seamlessly between traditional and electronic resources. All strategies that have been created to incorporate hard copy researching techniques have been updated with alternate electronic methods.Particular attention has been paid to the chapter on secondary sources, and with the maintenance of a structured approach to research, recognises that online research - with its many inherent pitfalls - must carefully fit within rules of research required by the discipline.

This timely Handbook contains a wide-ranging overview of the diverse research methods used within international law. Providing an insightful examination of how international legal knowledge is analysed and adopted, this Handbook offers the reader a deeper understanding on the role and place of research methods in international legal theory, reasoning and practice.

Representing Clients in Legal Negotiations; Obligation of Competent Representation. Basic Types of Legal Negotiation; Basic Elements of Case Value; Case Evaluation Methods; Goals; Interests; Target Points; Minimum Dispositions; Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement; Settlement Offers and Discussions as Evidence at Trial; Procedural Rules Affecting Offers of Compromise; Effect of Negotiations on the Statute of Limitations; Legal Disputes that Should Not Be Negotiated; Legal Negotiating Styles; Legal Negotiating Strategies; Stages of Legal Negotiation; Interplay Between the Litigation Process and the Stages of Negotiation; Environmental Considerations; Ground Rules; Communication and Information Exchange; Truth in Legal Negotiations; Intimidation; Face Saving; Threats and Promises; Conflict Escalation and Entrapment; Narrowing the Differences; Reaching Agreement; Defects in Settlements; Fairness in Negotiating Results.

The first guide to legal research intended for the many nonspecialists who need to enter this arcane and often tricky area

When the Handbook for Research in American History was first published, reviewers called it "an excellent tool for historians of all interests and levels of experience . . . simple to use, and concisely worded" (Western Historical Quarterly) and "an excellent work that fulfills its title in being portable yet well-filled" (Reference Reviews). The Journal of American History added, "It is not easy to produce a reference work that is utilitarian and enriching and does not duplicate existing works. Professor Prucha has done the job very well." This second, revised edition takes account of the revolution that is occurring in bibliographic science as printed reference works extend to electronic databases, CD-ROMs, and online networks such as the Internet. Focusing on and expanding the major section of the original Handbook, it provides information on traditional printed works, describes new guides and updated versions of old ones, notes the availability of reference works and of some full-text sources in electronic form, and discusses the usefulness to researchers of different kinds of material and the forms in which they are available. Extensive cross-referencing and a detailed index that includes authors, subjects, and titles enhance the book's usefulness.

The purpose of this second volume is to challenge and extend the field of research in public relations. Taking a proactive approach to creating a stable, yet not stagnant annual, the editors directly solicited chapters on exciting and intriguing subjects. Assuming some prior knowledge, interests, and commitment of their readers, the editors hope that each chapter's report on original research provides enough context for understanding even if the area of inquiry is new to the readers. Public Relations Research Annual, Volume 2, continues to advance within the discipline beyond anecdotes to practical theories and research. Educators, practitioners, and researchers will find this annual's presentations and critiques useful in creating a systematic framework for their own endeavors.

This annotated bibliography evaluates the traditional reference aids available in most college libraries in terms of their usefulness in women's studies research, highlighting issues and problems of central concern to researchers in women's studies.

Legal Reasoning, Research, and Writing for International Graduate Students, Fifth Edition, helps international students understand and approach legal reasoning and writing the way law students and attorneys do in the United States. With concise and clear text, Professor Nedzel introduces the unique and important features of the American legal system and American law schools. Using clear instruction, examples, visual aids, and practice exercises, she teaches practical lawyering skills with sensitivity to the challenges of ESL students. New to the Fifth Edition: Streamlined presentation makes the material even more accessible. Chapters are short, direct, and to the point. Five chapters on reasoning and writing, including exam skills, office memos, and rewriting. Full chapters on contract drafting and scholarly writing. New flowcharts provide a concise, visual overview for each chapter. Citation coverage updated to new 21st edition of The Bluebook. Simplified examples and exercises. Three thoroughly revised chapters on legal research, including non-fee legal research and technological changes in the practice of U.S. law. Professors and student will benefit from: Comparative perspective informs readers about the unique features of American law as compared to civil law, Islamic law, and Asian traditions. Explanations of practical skills assume no former knowledge of the American legal system. U.S. law school necessary skills explained immediately: case briefing, creating a course outline, time management, reading citations, and writing answers to hypothetical exam questions. Short, lucid chapters that reiterate major points to aid comprehension. Clear introductions to writing hypothetical-based exams, legal memoranda, contract drafting and scholarly writing. An integrated approach to proper citation format, with explanation and instruction provided in context. Discussion of plagiarism and U.S. law school honor codes. Practical skill-building exercises in each chapter. Research exercises are primarily Internet-based Charts and summaries that are useful learning aids and reference tools

A thoroughly revised edition, providing full coverage of online sources, the techniques of electronic searching, and using the Internet, as well as traditional resources.

Prisoners' Self-Help Litigation Manual, in its much-anticipated fourth edition, is an indispensable guide for prisoners and prisoner advocates seeking to understand the rights guaranteed to prisoners by law and how to protect those rights. Clear, comprehensive, practical advice provides prisoners with everything they need to know on conditions of confinement, civil liberties in prison, procedural due process, the legal system, how to litigate, conducting effective legal research, and writing legal documents. Written by two legal and penitentiary experts with intimate knowledge of prisoner's rights and legal aid work, authors John Boston and Daniel E. Manville strategically focus on federal constitutional law, providing prisoners and those wishing to assist them with the most important information concerning legal rights. Over the past decade, prison law and conditions have changed significantly. This new edition is updated to include the most relevant prisoners' rights topics and approaches to litigation. Updates include all aspects of prison life as well as material on legal research, legal writing, types of legal remedies, and how to effectively use those remedies. Certainly the most authoritative, well-organized and relevant prisoner's rights manual available - - the eagerly awaited fourth edition should be purchased by everyone interested in civil rights for the incarcerated.

This Nutshell provides a basic introduction to international and foreign legal research for the non-specialist. It offers guidance through the unfamiliar pathways of research using international and non-US legal materials and demystifies the world of treaties and international case law. Since it's aimed at the non-specialist, it provides straight-forward background information on the United Nations and the European Union and includes guidance using the documents and legal materials of these institutions. There are extensive links to the rich world of Web resources, but it also describes print research tools that remain important in this field. It also sets out a road map for approaching a research problem involving international, foreign and comparative law. Finally, there is information on keeping current on new information and resources as well as tips for how to do handle source collection and cite-checking an international law journal article. Additional teaching materials are available for this title, and include online links to research sources noted in the book: Appendix A: Comprehensive List of Sources Appendix B: Websites Containing National Law Appendix C: Web Treaty Collections Appendix D: Planning Your Research and Organizational Tools