Transcript Introduction to Legal Research
Introduction to Legal Research & FSU Law Library Services Presented by Robin R. Gault, Associate Director of the Law Library Presentation Originally Created by Faye Jones, Professor & Director of the Law Library Reference Desk: 850-644-4095 Evening Service: The Hotline (Red Phone) at Reference
Legal Research: A Fundamental Skill
•
The MacCrate Report
, ABA Section of Legal Education & Admissions to the Bar, Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap v, 145 (Robert MacCrate ed. (1992).
• Fundamental Skill # 3: “In order to conduct legal research effectively, a lawyer should have a working knowledge of the nature of legal rules and legal institutions, the fundamental tools of legal research, and the process of devising and implementing a coherent and effective research design . . . .”
Legal Research: A Fundamental Skill
• An attorney’s failure to research a client’s case properly can result in a malpractice award against the attorney (
Hickox v. Holleman
, 502 So. 2d 626 (Miss. 1987)), a public rebuke by the court (
Massey v. Prince George’s County
, 918 F. Supp. 905 (D. Md., 1996)), or even suspension (
Attorney Grievance Comm’n v. Zdravkovich
, 762 A.2d 950 (Md. Ct. App., 2000)).
Legal Research: A Fundamental Skill
• Legal research must be • Correct • Comprehensive • Credible • Cost-effective
A Legal Researcher’s Goals
• Find correct resources to rely upon • The law that governs the facts in your case and which was in effect at the time the facts occurred • Be comprehensive • Mandatory primary authority, persuasive primary authority, useful secondary authority • Be credible • Find the strongest authority to rely upon • Be cost-effective • Practice, practice, practice • Caveat: Ask for help before frustration sets in…
Legal Research: The Basics
• Primary Authority •
IS
the law • Cases, Statutes, Constitutions, Regulations, Rules • Secondary Authority • Analysis and commentary • Usually the best place to begin research • Treatises, Practice materials, Periodicals, American Law Reports & much more • Finding Tools • Digests, Citators, and other techniques • Updating Tools • Lexis/Nexis Shepard’s Citators and Westlaw Keycite
Work From A Research Plan
• Identify research terms • Study the facts, read all available documents, and develop vocabulary before beginning to research • Assess the formats available: print or online?
• Keep a journal as you work • Find, read, and update secondary sources • Develop issues for primary research • Hint: It helps to write out the issues • Find, read, and update primary authority • Include nonlegal materials as appropriate
Primary Sources: Cases
• Courts: explain the dispute, the outcome, and their reasoning • Resolve only this dispute,
but
• Set precedent for the future • Courts are reactive, not proactive.
• Typical court structure: • Trial • Appellate (Intermediate) • Highest
Parts of a Case
• • • • • •
Caption:
names of parties in the case
Docket Number:
court-assigned tracking number
Citation:
(1853) publication location • Subsequent publications • 34 F. 211; 34 F.2d 211; 34 F.3d 211 • Parallel Citations • 55 U.S. 193, 14 How. 193, 14 L. Ed. 383, 1852 U.S. LEXIS 435
Attorneys:
names of counsel appearing for each of the parties in the case
Judges:
which judges wrote the majority opinion and any dissenting or concurring opinions
Opinion:
the actual decision of the judge
Federal Courts
Federal Case Reporters
• • • U.S. Supreme Court •
U.S. Reports
• •
Supreme Court Reporter Lawyer’s Edition
U.S. Courts of Appeals •
Federal Reporter
U.S. District Courts •
Federal Supplement
Regional Reporter System
Examples of Regional and Specialty Reporters
Florida Courts
• Florida Supreme Court • http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/ • 5 District Courts of Appeal • http://www.flcourts.org/courts/dca/dca.shtml
• 20 Circuit Courts • Both trial and appellate courts • http://www.flcourts.org/courts/circuit/circuit.shtml
• 67 County Courts • http://www.flcourts.org/courts/county/county.shtml
Florida Case Reporters
• • • • • •
Southern Reporter
• Regional reporter that includes Florida
Florida Cases
• A subset of
Southern Reporter
that contains only Florida cases
Florida Law Weekly
• New Florida appellate court decisions
Florida Law Weekly Federal
• New decisions of federal courts sitting in Florida, 11 th and U.S. Supreme Court Circuit
Florida Law Weekly Supplement
• New selected county and circuit court decisions http://www.floridalawweekly.com
Finding Tools
• Digests • • • • Comprehensive topical indexes
Decennial Digest General Digest West’s Florida Digest
&
Florida Digest 2d
• Citators • Using primary or secondary sources • “One good case” • “Mining the footnotes”
Is there a typical path for doing case research?
• Three questions: • Where to begin?
• How to proceed?
• When to stop?
• What is accessible/most useful?
• Online resources vs. print resources
Primary Sources: Federal Statutes & Constitution
• Government Printing Office (Official) • • •
Public Laws
(slip laws)
Statutes at Large
(session laws)
United States Code
(Reorganized into 50 topics) • Commercial Publishers (Unofficial) • •
United States Code Annotated (West) United States Code Service (Lexis)
Primary Sources: Florida Statutes & Constitution • Official •
Laws of Florida
(session laws) •
Florida Statutes
• Unofficial •
Florida Statutes Annotated (West)
•
Florida Annotated Statutes (Lexis)
Primary Sources: Regulations “Delegated Legislation”
• Federal • •
Code of Federal Regulation Federal Register
• Administrative agency publications • Florida •
Florida Administrative Code Annotated
• •
Florida Administrative Weekly Florida Administrative Law Reports
Rules of Procedure and Ethics
• Rules of courts • Federal, state, and local • Rules of Professional Conduct • •
Rules Regulating the Florida Bar American Bar Association Model Rules
• Codes of Judicial Conduct • Ethics opinions • The Florida Bar
Updating Tools • Currency is the lifeblood of the law!
• Shepard’s
• Print • Lexis
• Keycite (Westlaw) • Hint: Learn both systems!
Secondary Sources
• Treatises • Practice materials • Periodicals & Indexes •
Index to Legal Periodicals & Books
•
LegalTrac
• American Law Reports • Encyclopedias
Research Instruction by Law Librarians • Librarians teaching legal research • In classes: Advanced Legal Research, International Legal Research, Environmental Law Research.
• In research workshops & Jump Starts.
• In the Library • Ask for help from the reference librarians • Margaret Clark is the librarian liaison for 1Ls
• • • •
FSU Law Library
• Guides to resources • • • • • • • Online catalog (print and electronic resources) Law Library databases FSU Databases E-journals Other online sources Research guides Research Workshop schedule Services Staff Hours Policies
Law Library Services for Law Students • Individual research assistance • • • Research instruction CALI Past exams • • Course reserve materials • Interlibrary loan • • Wireless access Printing/photocopying Creation of unique research databases
Other Libraries
• • • • • • Main Library (Strozier) Information Studies Medical Music Science (Dirac) Regional/National Library Catalogs
Research & The End Game
• American Bar Association Career Guides • http://www.abanet.org/publiced/legalcareers.html
• FindLaw, http://careers.findlaw.com/ • The Florida Bar http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/PI/CertSect.nsf/Sections?Op
enForm http://www.flabuslaw.org/ • Professional Organizations • • AIPLA, http://www.aipla.org/ • Armed Forces http://www.navy.com/officer/legal =flash ; job_id=179 esc.cfm
; ; http://www.goarmy.com/JobDetail.do?id=318 ; http://www.marines.com/officer_programs/chooseyourplace.asp?format
http://www.airforce.com/careers/job.php?catg_id=1&sub_catg_id=3&af_ http://www.gocoastguard.com/dc/dcprograms/dcl.htm
• FSU J.D./M.S. joint degree in law librarianship http://www.ci.fsu.edu/Prospects/Grads/ssd98_JurisDrMS_degree_d