ABSTRACT
Legal research instruction is a time-honored activity of law librarians everywhere. Through publication, formal coursework, workshops, brown bags, online tutorials, and podcasts, our law students, new associates, and nonlaw professional colleagues are the beneficiaries of our expertise in planning and delivering instruction. We teach how to find the law, how to make sure it is current, and how to interpret the law that is found. Traditional formal legal research instruction usually emphasizes the federal system of law creation, leaving law students to fend for themselves when their practice requires legal research in the state jurisdiction of their practice. Although sources of state
law are frequently included in textbooks and in some lectures and exercise sets of first-year or advanced legal research (ALR) courses, the sources and methods of conducting state research usually receive short shrift, particularly in law schools that consider themselves “national.” This level of instruction is not adequate. We must prepare our law students to practice in whatever state jurisdiction they find themselves and that includes instructing them in identifying sources for state jurisdictions and specialized areas of the law, evaluating legal authority regardless of format, and conducting cost-effective electronic research. Our research reveals that providing a state-specific legal research course as one of a series of legal research courses is a popular and well-attended opportunity for students that enhances research competencies and builds confidence. Every law school should include meaningful state-specific legal research content as part of its formal research curriculum.
We have come a long way since Frederick Hicks urged adoption of formal legal bibliography courses in 1918.1 Law librarians are active leaders and advocates in legal research instruction. They know that the students need and value this instruction. Legal research instruction has taken a variety of forms, from informal lunchtime brown bags and “bridge the gap” type programs to legal bibliography within the required first-year (1L) legal research and writing courses and providing guest lectures in substantive law classes. Additionally, there has been a documented increase in the number of formal courses given for academic credit.
