Gilbert Law Summary on Legal Research Writing and Analysis
Authors:
Honigsberg, Peter Jan / Ho, Edith
Edition:
12th
Copyright Date:
2014
22 chapters
have results for research
Chapter Eight: Online Legal Research 11 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Law schools, law firms, and county and bar association libraries research the law online. Computers can speed up your search of the law, but unless you use the proper keywords—as in traditional legal research—they will not be very helpful. Consequently, you should know something about the subject you are researching before you begin using a computer research system. If the subject is unfamiliar to you, begin with an encyclopedia or a treatise to obtain an overview of the area. Many such secondary sources are also available through the online research systems discussed below.
- Westlaw has introduced WestlawNext as a new option for researching. The changes are intended to provide an easier research experience, similar to Google searching, by allowing the user to search without using terms and connectors or isolating databases. Users may still use terms and connectors if they wish. Other enhanced features allow users to create folders to organize their research, highlight language, and make notes. Both WestlawNext and the classic format are currently available to Westlaw subscribers but it is expected that WestlawNext will evolve into the dominant search platform for Westlaw because of its enhanced features that make research easier. In addition to the website, WestlawNext is also available to subscribers as a mobile application.
- Bloomberg Law (http://www.bloomberglaw.com) is an online research system available by paid subscription. It integrates legal research with Bloomberg’s established database of financial information. Bloomberg Law’s services include a proprietary law digest, law reports, and an online citator verification system (
- Fastcase (http://www.fastcase.com) is an online research system available to individuals, law schools, and law firms, and offered by several bar associations as a free member benefit. Fastcase’s paid subscription database includes cases, statutes, regulations, news, and legal forms, and integrates the PACER system for federal docket searches ( ). Fastcase also provides a free mobile application that allows users to research cases and statutes without a subscription (
- 2. Online Research Systems
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Introduction and Approach 6 results (showing 5 best matches)
- This book was designed in recognition of the growing concern among law schools for teaching legal research, writing, and analysis skills. The first part of the book covers the basic legal research skills. It focuses on how to research primary sources such as cases, statutes, and regulations; on how legal encyclopedias, digests, looseleaf materials, form books, law reviews, treatises, and other secondary sources are used; and on how to Shepardize or KeyCite a case. Then it expands on the use of computers and the Internet in researching both primary and secondary legal sources.
- However, in the past decade, law school administrators have been reevaluating the needs of law students and have begun instituting more practice-oriented programs. The law faculties have come to realize that law schools have an obligation to effectively instruct their students in basic lawyering skills, including: (i) researching and drafting objective writing pieces such as a memorandum of law or client letter; (ii) researching and drafting persuasive writing pieces such as a memorandum of points and authorities, brief in support of a motion, demand or negotiation letter, trial brief, or appellate brief; and (iii) presenting an oral argument before a judge or jury.
- In reassessing their law school curricula, many law faculties have upgraded their legal research and legal writing classes by adding more serious writing exercises and offering more oral presentation programs. Many of these courses are now given equal unit weight with such basic building blocks as contracts and torts.
- We trust that you will find this book a useful contribution to your understanding and development of basic legal research and legal writing skills.
- Law schools have also supplemented their basic research, writing, and analysis courses with more advanced practical classes such as those in client preparation and counseling, mediation and negotiation, trial litigation, and appellate advocacy. Clinical courses in family law, criminal law, environmental law, immigrant rights and refugee law, and civil liberties and civil rights are offered in many schools. Many law teachers have also adopted more creative teaching methods utilizing computers and audiovisual tools.
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Chapter Five: Secondary Sources 5 results
- The Internet has many alternative sources of recent scholarship and commentary to aid in your research. However, the ease of Internet publishing is a double-edged sword for the researcher—information is updated more frequently and is often free, but it might not be vetted in the same manner as traditional publications. Still, several quality resources exist to help you begin your research.
- SSRN (http://www.ssrn.com) provides some of the most current research and scholarship that may be available on a particular topic, for free. SSRN’s Legal Scholarship Network allows users to upload their legal research, working papers, and law review articles to the SSRN website so they can be shared with other scholars, lawyers, and law students.
- a. Social Science Research Network (“SSRN”)
- Treatises may be one volume, but most often they are multivolumed. They may review a broad tract of law like contracts or torts, or just one aspect of the law like landlord-tenant issues, insurance law, or medical malpractice. They may be written to cover the entire country or just one state. A local treatise will naturally be more precise and complete, being fitted to your state’s law. Examples of the various kinds of treatises are included in the Appendix. Also be sure to check the library catalog under the subject you are researching.
- Legal blogs may provide the most up-to-date legal commentary available. Thousands of law blogs (often referred to as “blawgs”) are online, with many focusing on a specific area of the law or on practice in a particular jurisdiction. They may be produced by law professors or practitioners and can be hosted by a law school or firm, but note that not all are written by experts. The best use of a law blog is to check for recent developments in the field you are researching. To find one, try the
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Index 60 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Finding all the appropriate authorities relevant to your case is not all there is to effective legal research. You need to organize the fruits of your research—the cases, statutes, regulations, and other authorities—in a coherent, easy-to-review manner. The more efficiently you organize, the sooner you will be able to begin writing.
- One method found to be very helpful in organizing legal material is the Honigsberg Grid. This grid provides you with an immediate guide to, and comparison of, the cases and other authorities you have found. It will help you quickly see how each case deals with a particular issue and principle of law and allow you to make immediate comparisons among the several cases you have researched.
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Chapter Four: Statutes, Constitutions, Legislative History, and Treaties 18 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Researching the annotated codes is similar to researching any legal sourcebook. There is a descriptive word index, the preferred entry into the texts, and a table of contents for people who are familiar with the material and need only check topic headings.
- People often begin their research with a check through the statutes. Statutes are the laws enacted by Congress or state legislatures. (Laws are also enacted by municipal and county legislative bodies. These laws are generally known as “ordinances” and are briefly mentioned later in this chapter.)
- This chapter will begin with a discussion of researching statutes and their annotations, followed by a similar description of state and federal constitutions. We will conclude with legislative intent, that amorphous term that attempts to collect together the thoughts of the representatives who passed the law. Judges often use legislative intent and legislative history in making their determinations on the interpretation of a statute.
- Yearly supplements are often sufficient for research purposes. Many laws do not take effect until the year following passage. But there will be times when you will need to check on a law that was recently enacted, one that has not yet been included in an annual supplement. How do you find it?
- 6. Researching the Federal Codes
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- Your next steps in researching will depend on how much you know about your topic. If you know very little about your topic, you may want to jumpstart your research by first consulting a secondary source (
- 1. Possible Next Steps for Research
- (5) If you are having trouble thinking of words and synonyms for your chart, try using a dictionary or a thesaurus. The dictionary need not be a law dictionary, since many of the words are nonlegal. Online research systems like LexisNexis and Westlaw may suggest similar terms when you search.
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Chapter Seven: Keeping Up to Date—Using Shepard’s and KeyCite 6 results (showing 5 best matches)
- When researching through Shepard’s, be sure to check if there is more than one bound volume in the series you are using. The red bound volumes may not be cumulative; you need to check through each one that includes your cited material. To be certain you have researched through the complete set, check the covers of the yellow, red, and blue supplements. They detail the bound volumes and supplements that make up that particular series.
- b. Using Shepard’s Citations for Research
- Westlaw’s citations research service, KeyCite, provides status flags next to the case or statute you are viewing to indicate that there is history available on your case or statute. A red status flag indicates that your case or statute is no longer good law, either in whole or in part. A yellow status flag indicates that your case has received some negative treatment. A blue “H” lets you know that there is some history on your case, but it is not necessarily negative; and a green “C” indicates that your case has been cited.
- Because many more cases are decided each week than statutes are enacted or regulations adopted, Shepard’s Citations is most frequently used with cases. Is the case you are researching still recognized as good law? Did a higher court reverse or modify the decision? Have courts followed the principles of law established in the case or did they establish new or different principles? Before you can safely cite a case as authority, you need to know how later courts have treated it. Finding out is simple. Just check the appropriate Shepard’s volume, look up the case, and run down the notations below its citation.
- questionable (for example, because the case is up for review in a higher court, or the court has ordered the case depublished); you should do more research before citing to this particular case as authority.
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Capsule Summary 12 results (showing 5 best matches)
- In doing research, a good brief will cut down your time measurably. You will not have to go back to read the case again because you cannot remember what it said and your notes are all jumbled. It will also make it simpler for you to be well organized in preparing your own case in court or at an administrative hearing.
- North Carolina prison inmates sued in federal district court, claiming that the state’s failure to provide them with legal research facilities denied them access to the courts in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court granted the inmates’ motion for summary judgment, ordering the state to set up a legal research assistance program. A library plan was proposed by North Carolina and approved by the court, with the court holding in addition that the state did not also have to provide legal advisors. The court of appeals affirmed in all but one respect (which was not raised here). The state petitioned for review. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
- As the word implies, a brief is a concise outline of the court decision. (This term “brief” should not be confused with a “brief” filed by an attorney in a court. A brief in the latter context is a forceful presentation of the issues and law involved in the client’s case. It is designed to persuade the court to decide in the client’s favor.) Briefing a case helps you organize your thoughts and determine what the court is actually saying. Because many court opinions are long-winded and often shrouded in legal terms, briefing is a more difficult skill than first imagined. It is not surprising to find that many law students and even lawyers will misread cases and jumble their analysis of the law on the subject under investigation. Without this skill, you will never be very effective in doing legal research and writing.
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- C. Researching Agencies and Administrative Law
- C. Researching Agencies and Administrative Law
- The index and finding-aids volume includes an explanation of how to use these books. The index can be researched in the same manner as any other legal sourcebook index. However, you may want to use the Congressional Information Service (“CIS”) Index to the
- When your research involves agencies, remember to check their rules and regulations, administrative decisions, orders and opinions, internal procedures, and files. Much of this information is available online. (Your access to federal government agency records is clearly set out in the Freedom of Information Act [5 U.S.C. § 552]. Many states have comparable legislation, sometimes known as a government records act.)
- In most of your research, you have had to examine several sources—statutes, regulations, reporters, treatises, encyclopedias, digests, law reviews—before you could be certain you had found the proper primary material. For much of federal administrative law, this process has been greatly eased. Many publishers have collected statutes, regulations, agency decisions, and court decisions and arranged them by subject. Thus, if you have a question on federal labor law, housing law, or tax law, you may need only to check the appropriate looseleaf edition on that topic.
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Appendix A—Review of Resources 1 result
Summary of Contents 4 results
Chapter Two: Understanding Our Legal System 7 results (showing 5 best matches)
- C. Things to Keep in Mind for Legal Research
- C. Things to Keep in Mind for Legal Research
- Whenever you do legal research, keep in mind two things: (i) the division between the federal government and the state governments; and (ii) the separation of either government (state or federal) into its three lawmaking branches (executive, legislative, and judicial). Problems in legal research correspond to these concepts. Is it a state and/or federal law problem? Which branch of government is involved in the problem? Is more than one branch involved? We will conclude this chapter with a discussion of these problems. (At times you will need to consider whether municipal or county law is also involved. But in order to present a clear picture of the state/federal distinction, we have decided to include municipal and county ordinances and administrative acts as part of the state law, and not discuss them separately.)
- The legislative branch is generally thought of as the branch that “makes the law.” In large measure, this is true. But both the judicial and executive branches can, and in fact do, make law. Your research will not be complete if you inquire only into one branch of government and do not consider whether the others may also be involved. Take an example:
- When researching, if you are unsure as to whether state and/or federal law applies and which branch or branches are involved,
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- Research Associate
- Research Associate
- An evaluation is somewhat like a holding. It responds to the issue. But evaluations are opinions determined by you, whereas holdings are principles of law determined by the court. A brief answer allows the person reading your memorandum to obtain an immediate picture of the problem involved and how you propose to solve it. The reader can then read your discussion to see if you have approached the problem reasonably and researched the material thoroughly.
- (This memorandum of law was written and edited by members of the Legal Research, Writing and Analysis Program at the University of San Francisco School of Law. Special thanks to Stuart Sutton, Cristina Morris, Ellyn Moscowitz, Rochelle Wirshup, and Jean Allen.)
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- The tone of a client letter is very important. Since it is written to a layperson (unless your client is an attorney), your tone will be more informal than it would be if you were writing the same information to a supervising attorney. You do not need to cite any legal authorities in your letter, although sometimes attorneys will cite relevant statutes. If you have an attorney for a client, or perhaps a client who likes to research the law, you may want to refer to cases and other authorities as well.
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- (This memorandum of points and authorities was written and edited by members of the Legal Research, Writing and Analysis Program at the University of San Francisco School of Law. Special thanks to Stuart Sutton, Cristina Morris, Ellyn Moscowitz, and Rochelle Wirshup.)
- This memorandum of points and authorities was written and edited by members of the Legal Research, Writing and Analysis Program at the University of San Francisco School of Law. Special thanks to Stuart Sutton, Cristina Morris, Ellyn Moscowitz, and Rochelle Wirshup.
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Chapter Three: Cases 3 results
- There are millions of reported cases and the number is climbing steeply (as lawsuits increase). Because of this, many states and the federal government no longer authorize the publication of every appellate decision. California, for example, requires that only appellate cases establishing a new rule of law or modifying an existing rule of law be officially published. However, West and various publishers of looseleaf services publish many of those otherwise unpublished opinions. Also, the online research services LexisNexis and Westlaw include many unpublished decisions in their databases (
- : If the case is recent and you are looking at the hard copy of the reporter, you can look in the advance sheets of the named reporter. Advance sheets generally follow the same pagination as the bound volumes that will eventually replace them. However, if the case is recent, it is now faster to check online research systems such as LexisNexis and Westlaw, and legal newspapers. Your legal newspaper may have a digital version that provides the advance sheets online. If you know the case name and court jurisdiction but do not subscribe to Westlaw, Lexis or a legal newspaper, you can also try using Google or some other similar search engine to find the recent case (
- At the beginning of a case reported by West, you will find a summary of the facts and the decision followed by “headnotes” setting forth the principles of law stated in the case. These headnotes are written by editors of the company so as to key into the West system of law books. Accompanying each headnote is an illustrative key with a topic name and number. West divides each topic (there are more than 400 major topics) into key numbers, creating more than 800,000 individual units representing specific legal concepts. It then takes every principle of law stated in a case and includes it under one of these topics. Thus, someone who finds a headnote relevant to his research can turn to any West digest,
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Chapter One: Definitions 1 result
- When learning a new discipline, you must familiarize yourself with its particular terms, its jargon. Law is no exception. The profession has created a set of words and phrases which frequently mystify the layperson and the first-year law student. In this chapter we will explain a few of the basic terms with which you must be familiar if you are going to do legal research. Terms applicable to the material in this book will be defined in context. For other legal terms, you can refer to various law dictionaries, such as
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- Publication Date: July 18th, 2014
- ISBN: 9780314290977
- Subject: Legal Writing
- Series: Gilbert Law Summaries
- Type: Outlines
- Description: This outline covers court systems, precedent, case reporting system (including regional and state reporters, headnotes and the West Key Number System®, citations, and case finding), statutes, constitutions, and legislative history, and secondary sources (including treatises, law reviews, digests, and restatements). Also discussed are administrative agencies (including regulations, and looseleaf services), Shepard's Citations®, computers in legal research, reading and understanding a case (including briefing a case), using legal source books, basic guidelines for legal writing, organizing your research, writing a memorandum of law, writing a brief, and writing an opinion or client letter.
