Principle I: A Successful Legal Researcher Posses Foundational Knowledge of the Legal System and Legal Information Sources, including Analytical Tools
Standard A. An information-literate professional considers the full range of potential sources of information, regardless of type or format.
Competencies
1. Differentiates between primary and secondary sources and recognizes how their use and importance vary depending upon the legal problem or issue.
2. Identifies and uses the most effective secondary sources to obtain background information, to gain familiarity with terms of art, and to put primary materials in context.
3. Recognizes the differences in the weight of authority among sources and applies that knowledge to the legal research problem.
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You have been introduced or reintroduced to many secondary sources.
You will be using all of these sources throughout your career and some of them in the Final Research Project. Be sure that you have thought about when you would want to use each source in a research project.
Note that Competencies 3 “Recognizes the differences in the weight of authority among sources and applies that knowledge to the legal research problem” was addressed in the Evaluating Authority Exercise.
Sources:
Legal Encyclopedias
American Law Reports
Treatises
Periodicals (recording and discussion forum)
Practice Guides (you will be further introduced in Module 6)
Restatements of Law
Uniform Laws and Model Acts (are secondary sources are not primary sources since the uniform law and model acts are proposals to the legislators in the 50 states)
Citators:
Remember you can KeyCite or Shephardize many secondary sources to find cases, other secondary sources, etc. that have cited that secondary source. KeyCite and Shepard’s are not for cases only!
