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Hi,

I just learned that this might be asked in an interview I have tomorrow. Let's say I want to research a legal issue. What is the step by step process of doing it at a library/with books? I have a feeling it's quite simple; I just cannot remember how to do it.

Thanks in advance.

(Optional Step 0.) Start from a relevant treatise.
Step 1. Once you have the main cases on point, you can locate those in reporters.
Step 2. Look up your main cases in a hard copy citator/digest (essentially a print volume full of nothing but headnotes). You can get the right topics to look up in the headnotes from your reported case.
Step 3. Look up more cases in reporters.

Rinse and repeat.

If you have Westlaw access right now, you can pull up PDFs of the reporters and see how it looks. If you pull up older cases it should have the volume/page numbers for what digest to look at for each headnote.

objctnyrhnr wrote:Hi,

I just learned that this might be asked in an interview I have tomorrow. Let's say I want to research a legal issue. What is the step by step process of doing it at a library/with books? I have a feeling it's quite simple; I just cannot remember how to do it.

Thanks in advance.

An employer is asking this question in 2014? Wow.

ph14 wrote:

objctnyrhnr wrote:Hi,

I just learned that this might be asked in an interview I have tomorrow. Let's say I want to research a legal issue. What is the step by step process of doing it at a library/with books? I have a feeling it's quite simple; I just cannot remember how to do it.

Thanks in advance.

An employer is asking this question in 2014? Wow.

It must be just as some kind of curveball question. I have to think that doing legal research in 2014 without any electronic database whatsoever would be an ineffective assistance of counsel claim waiting to happen. Unless OP is interviewing to be a jailhouse lawyer.

If they're asking this (absurd) question, you may also want to be familiar with the KeyCite system from West... if you don't have a treatise on the topic (and I'd bet that employers who are too cheap to get interwebs citation don't), the reporters have the key system. You look at the broad topic, then narrow down through subtopics until you get to the most narrow version. Then, there will be a list of cases and 1-2 sentence summaries of the case that address the issue. If this is really going to be asked in an interview question, go ask your research librarian to show it to you. Probably worth having the details about both treatises and keyciting to respond to any followup questions.

...Seeing that this gets asked in some interviews makes me pretty grateful that my LWRA prof made us do this as a credit/no credit exercise once, even though I've never been asked.

Nelson wrote:

ph14 wrote:

objctnyrhnr wrote:Hi,

I just learned that this might be asked in an interview I have tomorrow. Let's say I want to research a legal issue. What is the step by step process of doing it at a library/with books? I have a feeling it's quite simple; I just cannot remember how to do it.

Thanks in advance.

An employer is asking this question in 2014? Wow.

It must be just as some kind of curveball question. I have to think that doing legal research in 2014 without any electronic database whatsoever would be an ineffective assistance of counsel claim waiting to happen. Unless OP is interviewing to be a jailhouse lawyer.

Tons of old guys do it that way still. TBH, it's actually pretty good. Better than just googling on westlaw next.

Though I find it's better to use the e-resources like books.

Nelson wrote:

ph14 wrote:

objctnyrhnr wrote:Hi,

I just learned that this might be asked in an interview I have tomorrow. Let's say I want to research a legal issue. What is the step by step process of doing it at a library/with books? I have a feeling it's quite simple; I just cannot remember how to do it.

Thanks in advance.

An employer is asking this question in 2014? Wow.

It must be just as some kind of curveball question. I have to think that doing legal research in 2014 without any electronic database whatsoever would be an ineffective assistance of counsel claim waiting to happen. Unless OP is interviewing to be a jailhouse lawyer.

Yeah, I agree. It's a bad curveball question though. A good curveball question tests how you think or react to unexpected circumstances. This just asks if you know how to research using outdated and inefficient technology.

Pro-tip - keyword index to digests.