Strategic Legal Research

This course is designed to provide students with an advanced understanding of ways lawyers use primary and secondary legal research sources and finding tools to successfully represent their clients. An emphasis is placed on the development of effective legal research strategies that take into account choice of format (e.g., the relative advantages and disadvantages of print and electronic sources), cost/benefit analysis of format choice, evolving approaches by law firms and private practitioners to billable research hours, use of computerized tools to organize research results, and presentation of research results to case supervisors. Course content will be presented in a hybrid format consisting of two hours per week of in-class meetings with the remaining credit to be completed by coursework outside scheduled class time through online and written assignments. This course satisfies the experiential learning requirement.