From the Law Library
Posted by: VULawLibrary in 2-Ready for Final Edit, From the Law LibraryBy now, hopefully everyone has settled in for another good year at Valparaiso University School of Law. But, before you get too comfortable with Income Tax, Constitutional Law, Contracts or any of your other classes, I thought I would share some real world tales about legal research. Unless you are a new 1L, I’m sure most of you have forgotten, or at least attempted to forget, about legal research. Here now are some reminders that the legal research skills you have been taught will stay important in your professional life.
Remember how we taught you about print digests, telling you that this was a skill that you really needed to know? We know that some of you treated this information as obsolete and archaic, since you were never going to have to use print sources, because everyone but the library professors know that Lexis and Westlaw are the only way to go. You might want to reconsider that and practice your print research skills to get the rust off. Why? Well, recently, a question was posed on the law librari
ans list serv asking how many law firms still actively subscribed to print digests. Out of 53 responses, only 3 firms did NOT still maintain print digests. Over half were still using both state and federal digests. What does this mean for you? It means that firms are still expecting their attorneys to use print sources or they wouldn’t be spending the large sums of money needed to maintain those print sources. Moral of the story, keep your print skills handy, you never know when you might need them.
A true tale of always check and then check again and maybe even check again. A law student from Valpo was working for a local judge. The judge cited a case from the Indiana Court of Appeals as part of the order that was issued. The validity of this case was checked by the student, 9 days before the order was issued. Between the day
authority verification was run and the order was issued, the Indiana Supreme Court accepted transfer on the Court of Appeals and vacated the decision. Now the local judge has the possibility that the original order that was issued will have to be reconsidered unless the Supreme Court decides to affirm. Moral of this story, remember to do authority verification early and often, and always, one more time just before the work product goes out the door. Even judges can fall prey to ignoring this warning.
Good legal research goes beyond just the courtroom. On September 5th of this year, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that three petitions will not be placed on the November state ballot. Why not? Seems the petition circulators relied on a guide that was on the Secretary of State’s web site, a guide
that had not been updated to reflect the changes made to the law in 2007. A disclaimer on the web site informed viewers the guide was not updated. So, more careful research and voters would have had the opportunity to vote on redirecting room tax money to education, transportation and public safety. Moral here, no matter where you find your information, make sure you check the original source.
Finally, a quote from a private firm
attorney about his observations on legal
research.
“Legal research is a part of the larger issue of legal analysis and reasoning…The use of print materials seems to better stress and underscore the need for analysis. In contrast, on-line research is many times more mechanical (i.e., putting together search terms) and many topics are missed… [T]he emphasis needs to be on the analytical approach to a problem and then on where the answers are to be found.”
This quote was part of a conference on the future of legal research presented at Chicago Kent Law School in May of 2007. It sums up rather nicely what we hope you have learned here at Valpo Law.
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