The Process of Legal Research: Practices and Resources [Connected eBook with Study Center]

Buy a new version of this textbook and receive access to the Connected eBook with Study Center on CasebookConnect, including: lifetime access to the online ebook with highlight, annotation, and search capabilities; practice questions from your favorite study aids; an outline tool and other helpful resources. A long-time best-selling comprehensive text for basic legal research, The Process of Legal Research: Practices and Resources, Ninth Edition melds a rich discussion of legal authorities with a presentation of strategic processes for researching using the vast array of resources now available to the legal researcher. With readability in mind, The Process of Legal Research is written to engage various learners through streamlined text, graphics, in-text scenarios that draw on first-year topics, sample documents, and self-assessment questions. Covering sources from dictionaries to international and tribal law, and presenting and repeatedly demonstrating ten practices that distinguish skilled researchers, the book zeroes in on current, credible, cost-efficient options for each type of legal authority. To maximize students’ comprehension, the chapters conclude with a research scenario paired with questions for guided practice as well as a theoretical question to prompt class discussion. 

Key Features of the New Edition:

• New chapter discussing ten practices of skilled researchers, including choosing resources with care, piggy-backing on other’s work, and managing your information file—which echo through remaining chapters
• “Test Your Knowledge” questions (with answers provided) to test student acquisition of key concepts
• “Put It Into Practice” feature placing guided practice exercise directly in book itself, rather than on website
• Reflection of dramatic shifts in resources, e.g., presentation of print digests and reporters as background material; more focus on free web sources such as Office of Law Revision Counsel United States Code Online, Google Scholar for cases research, Congress.gov; more coverage of lost-cost commercial resources
• Coverage of resources for each type of authority based on likelihood of use in practice, i.e., high-efficiency, low-cost access to credible material tailored to specific research context (as reflected in, e.g., ABA’s 2014 Legal Technology Survey Report, Internet Legal Research on a Budget, and recent studies of attorney research practices)
• Overall streamlining of text
• Re-structured secondary sources chapter