Legal research protips Forum

[PeanutsNJam]

I know legal research is an important as fuck skill to master but my school sucks at teaching it so I was wondering if anybody had some protips to share. Like am I correct in completely ignoring Bloomberg, do you ever really need to look at persuasive authority? Etc. Also, how is practice legal research n writing in a firm different from law school LRW?

[A. Nony Mouse]

I've never once looked at Bloomberg. And you need to look at persuasive authority when there isn't any binding authority on point.

[GreenEggs]

Serious question, I never know when to stop researching new case and what cases are too old?

Like if I was looking at a narrow criminal issue in a small jurisdiction (say VT) there might be very very few cases on the matter since trial courts don't have opinions, I'll only get CoA and the SC of that state. If there's only 4-5 cases that explore this issue but they're from 1970/80, is that okay to use in a memo or brief? Or is that too far back?

[lacrossebrother]

Bloomberg is awesome dude as a student. You get free PACER access and its headnotes are awesome because they are more detailed, but fewer in number.

[foregetaboutdre]

Serious question, I never know when to stop researching new case and what cases are too old?

Like if I was looking at a narrow criminal issue in a small jurisdiction (say VT) there might be very very few cases on the matter since trial courts don't have opinions, I'll only get CoA and the SC of that state. If there's only 4-5 cases that explore this issue but they're from 1970/80, is that okay to use in a memo or brief? Or is that too far back?

If you're in that jurisdiction and that's the law (and you found nothing else), I would say yes. I've cited cases from that time period and have been perfectly fine with my legal writing class. I mean what else would you cite? I would say those cases would have more authority than if you cited out of jurisdiction w/ states/ the Fed govt interpreting/doing something different.

IMO 1970/1980 perfectly fine. If you get to like 1920/1930 watch out. Also if you're on Westlaw (you can probably do this on Lexis too), check briefs that cite those cases from the 70s/80s. You might find something more recent. (a case)

Bloomberg is awesome dude as a student. You get free PACER access and its headnotes are awesome because they are more detailed, but fewer in number.

Lol I just use the PACER on Bloomberg to follow cases that i'm currently interested in outside of LS.

[totesTheGoat]

I know legal research is an important as fuck skill to master but my school sucks at teaching it so I was wondering if anybody had some protips to share.

Use the advanced "boolean" search every time. Just typing words into the omnibar is a great way to get a muddled mess. In the real world, searches cost money, so the better results you can get in one search, the more valuable you are. If you spend 30 minutes at the start of your research to get a clear focus on the issues at hand, you can get a ton of relevant hits in 1 or 2 searches. Also, some firms pay for a rep for the preferred search engine of choice to be available, so you can call them up and have them help craft your searches before hitting the submit button and charging your client.

I took an advanced legal research class because I felt so unprepared after LRW. The ALR class was what the research portion of LRW should have been. Too bad they don't have an Advanced ALR class for actually learning advanced research techniques.

[PeanutsNJam]

Thanks for the protips more pls

[Good Guy Gaud]

+1 to the bullion searching or however you spell it


(_____ /p ____) same paragraph

(____ /s ____) same sentence

etc etc.

the search engines probably have a list of the ones that will work but I find they save me a ton of time

[pupshaw]

+1 to the bullion searching or however you spell it


(_____ /p ____) same paragraph

(____ /s ____) same sentence

etc etc.

the search engines probably have a list of the ones that will work but I find they save me a ton of time

This is the single most useful search technique. I didn't learn this until my 2L summer, and it was life changing. In addition to /p and /s you can use /n, meaning that your two search terms must appear within n words of each other.