use natural language query
tips
for searching
research in law seminar
sPRING 2001
syllabus
Your grade will be based on the following:
Your Pathfinder 40 percent
Your Research Diary 40 percent
Your Class Participation and Completion of In-Class Exercises (Note: many in class exercises will be based on a legal issue in the news). 20 percent
NB: To complete course requirements you will need your Lexis and Westlaw passwords, and access to email. You should have received an email account when you first became a student at LSU. If you do not have an email account please see the registrar. If you do not have Lexis and/or Westlaw passwords please see the appropriate vendor's student representative(s).
SCHEDULE OF CLASSES, ASSIGNMENTS, AND IMPORTANT DATES
January 8, 2001
Introduction to the course; course requirements; completion of skills assessment and expectations for the class handout. Hand out of suggested research topics. Introduction to the class website; use of electronic mail. Development and organization of legal information in the U. S. /contrast with other legal systems. Introduction of the themes that we will consider throughout the course: 1) what impact does the law have on legal information? 2) what impact does the structure of legal information have on the law? 3) what will sources of legal information look like five, ten, twenty years from now and why? 4) what control, if any, do lawyers as consumers and producers of information have over these developments?
Reviewing materials available: In Class Exercise "Roswell".
Readings (begin reading these for discussion on the 22nd).
Thomas R. Bruce, Some Thoughts on the Constitution of Public Legal Information Providers or Tears Shed Over Peer Gynt's Onion
Daniel Dabney, The Curse of Thamus
Rand report: Toward an ethics and etiquette for electronic mail
Steve Jackson Games v. U. S. Secret Service
Tracing Electronic Mail: Ethical implications of privacy in electronic mail
Also of interest: Bernard Hibbitts, Last Writes? Reassessing the Law Revew in the Age of Cyberspace
Survey of Student Research Interests
January 15, 2001
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. No class
Assignment for next week:
Meet with instructor and select topic for pathfinder.
Prepare a sample search for statutes and codes related to your pathfinder topic and bring it to class January 22.
January 22, 2001
Go over answers to skills assessment handout. Hand in proposed research topic. Go online on Lexis and Westlaw and look at organization and scope of databases included. How far do online databases mimic or diverge from printed sources? Discussion of information structure and philosophy of legal philosophy with regard to online systems.
Why do we still need to learn manual research? An examination and comparison of print and online sources for statutes and case law. How would you do your sample search online? In manual research sources? Are the results the same?
Describe your pathfinder topic to your colleagues.
Tort and criminal law. By way of review....Reporters, digests, state codes. In Class Exercise: Titanic Story
Annotated codes and statutes. Uniform state statutes. Digests.
Legal Information Institute: Statutes, Constitutions and Codes
Primary Legal Authority (slide presentation) (From the University of Arizona Law Library)
Using Digests (from Georgetown University Law Library)
The West Digest System (from the University of Oregon Law Library
Readings for next week:
Lawrence M. Friedman, "The Legal Profession: The Training and Literature of Law," A History of American Law 606-632; "The Legal Profession at Work," 633-654 (2d ed. 1985)
M. Ethan Katsh, Law Libraries and legal information places, in Law in a Digital World 65 (1995).
U.S. v. Thomson (DC)
Westlaw, Lexis Fight Price-Fixing Charges
West-Lexis Secret Pact Unshrouded
James H. Wyman, Freeing the Law: Case Reporter Copyright and the Universal Citation System
Do the two online vendors form an oligopoly? 1987 Anti-Trust Complaint. The Future of Online Legal Publishing
Examine: 'Lectric Law Library"s study of law study website at http://www.lectlaw.com/study.html
Assignment for next week: Find a website related to your area of interest or pathfinder topic. Evaluate it and report to the class via our class listserv before January 29, 2001.
January 29, 2001
Because last week's assignment seems to have caused some confusion we will work through it in class.
We will also do sample searches for your pathfinder topics.
February 5, 2001
Family law. Examining sources for public policy and other information. Periodical indexes and abstracts. Finding case law and statutes on specific topics. In class exercise: Who Gets the Children?
February 12, 2001
Administrative law. In class exercise: employment law.
Bibliography and downloading exercise.
Readings:
Cain, Charlene C., Administrative Law (Baton Rouge, LA: 1999).
Law Library KF 241 .A35 C35 1999
Also available on the net at http://www.law.lsu.edu/library/pathfinders/Administrative%20Law.htm
Additional research materials available at http://www.law.lsu.edu/library/biblio/legal.htm#US under Employment Law.
February 19, 2001
Legislative histories. Please bring the citation for a statute relevant to your pathfinder. We will examine resources for compiling legislative histories and compile a legislative history in class for your statute. If you do not have a relevant statute (unlikely!) please select a statute in an area of interest to you. If you do not know the statute citation, bring the name of the statute and we will practice locating cites for statutes.
Research aids for doing legislative history: Legislative history of U.S. law (from the House of Representatives website)
Federal Legislative History (from the Arizona State University Law Library)
There are many other electronic pathfinders available. Using a search engine, look for "legislative history pathfinder".
Please bring your diskettes to class. We will also do some downloading and look at additional sources of online bibliographic information such as FIRSTSEARCH.
In class exercise: Bibliography and Downloading Exercise.
February 26, 2001
Mardi Gras Monday. No class.
March 5, 2001
Federal telecommunications law. In class exercise.
March 12, 2001
Constitutional law. In class exercise.
Readings:
Constitutional Law Research: http://www.law.lsu.edu/library/biblio/constlaw.htm
Finding U. S. Supreme Court Docket information: http://www.law.lsu.edu/library/what%27s%20new/u.s.%20supreme%20court%20docket.htm
March 19, 2001
Law and medicine. In class exercise: The Case of the Demanding Mother.
Legal ethics research: doing research in an area of law in which attorney general opinions, association materials, and supreme court materials (other than case law) are important
March 26, 2001
Foreign Legal Systems: Canada. France. The United Kingdom.
Readings: John Henry Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition
Legal Research Links: International. The title is slightly misleading since this site has links to foreign law.
In-class exercise: Finding law in English on foreign legal systems.
April 2, 2001
Examining international and supranational legal systems. International Legal Research. Treaties. International organizations and their bibliography (The United Nations; the European Union). Other IGOs; NGOs.
Readings:
Lyonette Louis-Jacques, International Legal Research Using the Internet
WWW Sources (University of Colorado)
Private international law: http://www.law.lsu.edu/library/what%27s%20new/u.s.%20supreme%20court%20docket.htm
The un: http://www.asil.org/resource/un1.htm
April 12, 2001
15-20 minute reports on research projects. Please describe your research project, any problems you had, discoveries you made, and the results of your research.
Speakers: Mr. Price, Ms. Taylor, Mr. Raborn, Mr. Haydel, Ms. Ponthieu, Ms. Guillory, Ms. Cooper, Ms. Medlock, Mr. Giglio, Ms. Andrews, Mr. Robert
April 19, 2001
15-20 minute reports on research projects. Please describe your research project, any problems you had, discoveries you made, and the results of your research.
Speakers: Ms. Burkhalter, Ms. Mechler, Ms. C. Adams, Ms. Deane, Mr. Dupuis, Ms. Stevens, Ms. Morrison, Ms. J. Adams, Ms. McGarr, Ms. Ottinger
All Papers and other written work due no later than May 5th, 2 p.m. to me at room 309F or my secretary Ms. Bland, room 426. If you turn in your work in the library on Saturday, May 5th, do so to Ms. Hebert at the reference desk. She WILL NOT accept anything after 2 p.m. on May 5th.
use natural language query
tips
for searching |