Sources and Strategies of Legal Research, intended for use in first-year legal writing and research courses, offers a new approach to the course subject matter based on the concept that legal analysis is essential to legal research. This concise book is unique in two ways: it places legal analysis as the focal point of legal research; and it departs from the typical source-specific or bibliographical approach, instead taking a process-oriented approach, focusing on search strategies for efficiently and effectively finding information.
This text and the accompanying videos provide a basic introduction to the mysteries of legal research, giving the new legal researcher the tools necessary for success. The title Legal Research Survival Manual is chosen with care. The work does not provide comprehensive coverage of legal materials, and is not designed to replace traditional legal texts. Instead, it is an easy-to-read introduction for students at the very start of their career. It is designed to be an approachable resource to launch them into the first year of law school or as a legal research refresher for those starting their first jobs or internships. The videos can be watched in conjunction with the book or separately.
This book guides students through examples and explanations of the kinds of sources they’ve found, using the context of interesting and entertaining real-world problems. The text helps students determine which sources are the most useful for the current project and which not; it leads students to understand how one source affects and relates to the others; and—equally important—it shows students how to write about the sources they have found.