PRINCIPLES AND STANDARDS FOR LEGAL RESEARCH COMPETENCY
PRINCIPLE I: A SUCCESSFUL LEGAL RESEARCHER POSSESSES FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM AND LEGAL INFORMATION SOURCES, INCLUDING ANALYTICAL TOOLS.
PRINCIPLE II: A SUCCESSFUL LEGAL RESEARCHER GATHERS INFORMATION THROUGH EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT RESEARCH STRATEGIES.
PRINCIPLE III: A SUCCESSFUL LEGAL RESEARCHER CRITICALLY EVALUATES INFORMATION.
PRINCIPLE IV: A SUCCESSFUL LEGAL RESEARCHER APPLIES INFORMATION EFFECTIVELY TO RESOLVE A SPECIFIC ISSUE OR NEED.
PRINCIPLE V: A SUCCESSFUL LEGAL RESEARCHER DISTINGUISHES BETWEEN ETHICAL AND UNETHICAL USES OF INFORMATION, AND UNDERSTANDS THE LEGAL ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH THE DISCOVERY, USE, OR APPLICATION OF INFORMATION.
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The Principles are broad statements of foundational, enduring values related to skilled legal research, as endorsed by the American Association of Law Libraries.
The Standards provide a set of more specific applications of those norms or habits that demonstrate one’s commitment to and attainment of the principles.
The Competencies are activities that demonstrate knowledge and skill. Competencies provide concrete measures or indicators of successful achievement of the abilities required to meet the standards.
Secondary Sources – Institute for Historical Review
Principle III: A Successful Legal Researcher Critically Evaluates Information.
Standard A. An information-literate professional knows that information quality varies.
.ORG
According to Wikipedia, ORG “is commonly used by non-profit organizations, open-source projects, and communities, but is an open domain that can be used by anyone.”
.ORG is an open domain and can be used by anyone – a non-profit, a not-for-profit, a for-profit business, etc. And, the terms non-profit, not-for-profit, for-profit, etc. have more to do with their tax status than with their trustworthiness.
And, as was mentioned in the CALI Lesson – Evaluating Websites – A Bit More one of the State of Florida’s agencies uses a .com domain rather than .gov which you would expect.
One technique for evaluating websites is by looking at the materials on the website and sources outside the website including materials about the website, the executive director, etc.
The Website:
There seems to be a mix of materials on the website. There were links to reputable news websites including BBC News Bloomberg, and AP when I looked at the website. on July 2, 2021. There were also links to opinion pieces/articles on Newsmax, Occidental Observer – White Identity, Interests, and Culture, and links to opinion pieces/articles on the IHR website, including one by the Executive Director, Mark Weber.
Outside the Website:
I looked at the Wikipedia entry for the Institute for Historical Review. “best known for publishing articles and books promoting Holocaust denial”
I also found an article from the Yale Daily News explaining/ apologizing for running an ad from the Institute for Historical Review.
Reuters and Newsweek published articles on the banning of Mr. Weber from England.
One could certainly dig deeper, but at this point, I would deem the website untrustworthy.
Research Methodology
The final assignment for this class is the Final Research Project which will be handed out on Friday, July 16, and is due on Wednesday, July 28.
This is the time to consider how you plan on documenting your research.
PRINCIPLE 11: A Successful Legal Researcher gathers information through effective and efficient Research Strategies.
Standard D. An information-literate legal professional documents research strategies.
The CALI Lesson, Research Methodology, and Modules 1 and 2 provide some sample documentation tools. You also may want to query your colleagues to see how they document their research progress. You will need to adapt any of the samples to your own use and you may want to use these documents as inspiration to design your own set of documentation tools. The Word versions of these documents are available in Modules and 2.
If you have any questions, contact me!
Before providing links to these samples, you may want to revisit the article, Develop the Habit: Note Taking in Legal Research.
Research Strategy Worksheet & Log
The next three images are from the CALI Research Methodology Lesson.
The first image introduces the research log.
The second is a sample.
And, third explains updating along the way.
And, a few more reasons for written documentation:
Excerpt from the Research Strategy Guide at University of Loyola of Chicago
https://lawlibguides.luc.edu/firstyearlegalresearch/researchstrategy
- It’s helpful to have a written record research log to keep track of sources consulted because, if your question changes slightly as you learn more about your legal topic, you will have a record of what has and hasn’t been searched, what terms or techniques were used, and what the results were so you do not re-create the wheel and waste your own time.
- Keeping a research log will give you some assurance that you haven’t missed anything. You can compare your list of potential sources like treatises, law reviews, annotated codes, case databases, etc. against what you’ve actually researched. This will give you confidence that there isn’t more information lurking out there somewhere that you ought to have found.
- If you need to consult with a partner, professor, or librarian about your research, it would be most helpful to have a written record of what your searches have been and where you have looked. An expert will be able to determine whether there are sources that you should have searched, or whether your search terms need modifying if you have a record.
- In the real world, whether you are clerking, have an externship, or you are a summer or young associate, if the answer turns out to be “I cannot find an answer,” you will need to prove that result is justified. The best way to do that is by presenting the assigning attorney with your research log based on your research strategy and searching.
- If you have to set aside your research project for any length of time, a research log will help you by identifying where you have been, and what you have learned. Again, don’t re-create the wheel. If every time you sit in front of a computer you start fresh, you’re going to waste a lot of precious time, and you will have no confidence that you found everything that there is to find because you have no list or record.
- Finally, as you are researching, you will probably identify sources that seem interesting, or possibly helpful, but that may be outside the scope or focus of your current research. Write those down and keep them somewhere–perhaps in a separate folder labeled “maybe.” Never look serendipity in the mouth. Often times skillful researchers end up finding very good resources or bits of information in places they never thought they’d be. Don’t lose the opportunity to take advantage of this information simply because you failed to record its existence when you had the opportunity.
What a sample research log might look like:
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Sample Research Log |
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| Step | Resource/ Terms | Findings/ Values | Next steps/ Citations Found | Date/Status |
Derived from Robert M. Linz, Research Analysis and Planning: The Undervalued Skill in Legal Research Instruction, Legal Reference Services Quarterly, 34:1, 60-99 (2015).
CALI Lesson: Introduction to Search Logic and Strategies
Principal II. A Successful Legal Researcher Gathers Information through Effective and Efficient research strategies.
Standard B. An information-literate professional constructs and implements efficient, cost-effective search strategies.
Competencies 4. c. Possess a basic understanding of the means by which online search engines process queries and generate results, including the potential of algorithmic bias associated with machine learning.
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There are a number of reasons why it is important to use terms and connectors in your searches. One is that it focuses your attention on the search query – you need to think about what terms to use for your search (what terms would expect to see in the case, treatise, statute,, etc.) and how the search should be constructed to achieve the best search results.
The learning outcomes for this lesson were:
1. Create searches that work on both Westlaw and Lexis.
2. Use parentheses to control the order of operations.
3. Change connectors to expand or limit search results.
4. Truncate terms that may appear in more than one way in documents.
You may want to consider periodically throughout law school to revisit the lesson to refresh your skills.
Consider this scenario:
You want to retrieve documents about a dog or canine or German Shepherd biting or scratching a suspect:
Which search is more likely to find a case on point?
dog AND bite AND suspect
dog OR canine OR “german shepherd” /S bit! OR scratch! /P suspect
Think about the first search – you are requiring Westlaw and Lexis to retrieve cases that have the terms Dog, Bite and Suspect to be anywhere in the case. Dog could be on page one, Bite on page 25, and Suspect on page 30. Clearly, the cases you are looking for may not be at the top of the results list.
And the second search – you are requiring Dog, Canine or “German Shepard” to be in the same sentence as Bite or Biting or Bitten or Scratch and that sentence to be in the same paragraph as Suspect. Much more promising.
You still may need to adjust your search to find the best cases but you definitely will be further along with the second search.
Let’s say that you decide to adjust your search to be more specific. You decide that you want to be sure that the case mentions a dog that works for the police department.
What would you do?
You want to be sure that the term “police” and “dog” were in close proximity to each other. You might consider a phrase search if you were sure that judges would always use the phrase “police dog” in their opinions. But, just in case, they do not. Consider this addition: police +5 dog. The term “dog” must be within 5 words of the term “police.”
dog +5 police OR canine OR “german shepherd” /S bit! OR scratch! /P suspect
A search engine reads the connectors in a search string in a specified order. This is called the default “order of operation.” Many of us had to “work with” the “order of operation” before it became a natural part of our search strategy. You may want to keep it simple at the beginning and not include parenthesis, etc. until you feel comfortable in their use.
But, I have seen way too many students keep their strategies way too simple – that is to say, simply using this type of search – “dog and bite and suspect.”
This type of search does not harness the strengths of Lexis and Westlaw and will not be a productive search for you or your client. You may find “something” but in all probability you will have missed very useful results. Remember the discussion in the lesson about “Overly Broad Searches” and “Overly Narrow Searches.”
From the Lesson:
Keep it Simple
The easiest way to not get confused by the order of operation is to keep your searches simple until you decide to work on your advanced searching skills in the future. Then you could consult your system’s help screens to refresh your memory.
Single Term/Phrase Examples
blind! /S pedestrian /S hit!
blind! OR sightless /S pedestrian /S hit!
blind! OR sightless OR “impair! vision” /S pedestrian /S hit! OR strik!
blind! OR sightless OR “impair! vision” /S pedestrian /S hit! OR strik! AND “wrongful death”
Grouped Terms Example
blind OR (impair! /5 vision) /S pedestrian /S hit!
blind OR (impair! /5 vision) OR (wear! /5 glasses) /S pedestrian /S hit!
End of From the Lesson:
And, remember that you also have the ability to filter the results and to search within the search.
Remember that searching is a process. It is an iterative process. You may want to keep notes on which searches worked and which did not. And, keep notes on filtering, etc.
You also need to consider the type of materials you are searching for. Your search queries for cases may be different than your search queries for law review articles since the terms the author use and the placement within the materials may be different. And you may decide for statutes that you will use a natural language search rather than a terms and connectors search since statutes are written very differently than cases.
The searches that most of us use for Google or Bing or any other search engine rarely will suffice in a complex, legal database.
In the discussion forum question, you were asked to find cases dealing with the issues involved in a search of passengers arriving at MIA. One of the questions asked why you did not necessarily find the same cases in Lexis and Westlaw. One of the reasons for this question was to allow you to see the reason that when you are working on a research project you need to understand the search protocols of that database and you need to iterate the search process.
CALI Lessons and Grading
I will be assigning a number of CALI lessons this summer which means you will see many lessons on LessonLink. Please do the CALI lessons as they are assigned.
For example, for Module 1, you needed to do three – Introduction to Search Logic and Strategies , Legal Research Methodology
and Internet Searching – Search Engines.
Most of the lessons will not be graded. To receive credit for the non-graded lessons, you simply need to complete the lesson. However, that being said, I want you to make an honest effort in answering each question and if you have a question about any answer, please let me know. You will notice that I am not assigning a lot of assigned reading. In many instances, the CALI Lessons are the replacement for assigned reading. Take them seriously.
In the Syllabus, I mention that I might grade CALI lessons. If I decide to do that, I will give you a heads up when I will be grading a specific lesson. I will also put the term “graded” in the title of the lesson.
CALI provides analytics for each lesson which allows me to gauge areas where there needs to be more discussion. One of the ways, that I will address those areas is in this blog.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Welcome to our blog!
As I mentioned, in the Syllabus, this is a place for the discussion of CALI lessons, discussion forum questions, assessment tools, and other matters.
