This course is designed to prepare law students for research in practice and their clerkships. The course builds upon the research skills students acquired in first-year Legal Research and Writing, although no previous research experience is required and advanced degree students are welcome. The coverage goes well beyond the scope of first-year research assignments, however; it emphasizes cost-effective research, legislative analysis, administrative law research and other topics not covered in the first-year curriculum.
Objectives for the course include: (1) formulating an efficient research plan; (2) teaching students how to evaluate sources and use them effectively, with particular emphasis on cost-effective research; (3) expanding skills in primary and secondary U.S. legal sources, in all formats; (4) developing skills for effective online research - enabling students to make clear choices between research formats; and, (5) introducing students to the array of non-legal information resources (Stanford University is a particularly rich environment) that are of increasing importance to the legal community - for example, Social Sciences Data Service and many others.
Since learning legal research requires a hands-on approach, there will be weekly supervised exercises. In addition, students will be asked to produce a resources pathfinder on an area of interest to themselves.