WHAT IS A PATHFINDER?

A pathfinder is an organized body of material which identifies key resources and provides guidance in researching a particular question or discipline. Pathfinders can be very specific, e.g. Researching the history of flag-burning amendments and statutes or more general, e.g. Doing research in maritime law and admiralty. Good pathfinders are hard to write, because the writer must understand the area of law as well as the materials s/he is talking about. As you know, a good pathfinder is a godsend to the busy attorney or law student trying to come "up to speed" or review research in an area. Doing a pathfinder is a good way to learn about a new area of law or learn about an area in depth. It also helps you learn how to organize your approach to legal research generally and save research time later on.

Pathfinders can be printed or online. Some topics naturally lend themselves to the webpage or website format. If you think you would like to produce your pathfinder as a website, please let me know as soon as possible in the semester.

Requirements

At a minimum, your pathfinder must have the following:

1. A clear statement of the issue/topic/area of law being researched

2. An indication of the audience to whom the pathfinder is directed (is this a pathfinder for law students, the experienced attorney, the non-lawyer interested in the topic?)

3. Annotations or evaluations for most materials included, to assist the user in determining which materials will be most helpful. THESE MUST BE YOUR ANNOTATIONS OR EVALUATIONS, UNLESS YOU INDICATE OTHERWISE (WITH QUOTATION MARKS). 

4. An explanation of the resources (indexes, abstracts, catalogs, persons) you used in finding the sources you list. For example, did you search all of the Index to Legal Periodicals since 1960? Did you check all the online library catalogs in Louisiana?

5. An organizational structure that is either extremely obvious, or that you explain to the user.

To some extent the topic dictates the structure of the pathfinder. You can find many examples of pathfinders in Law Library Journal, Legal Reference Services Quarterly, and some student-edited law reviews. William S. Hein Company routinely publishes pathfinders prepared by law students. Two new examples are Jenny Hodgkins, Preservation and Protection of America=s Cultural Resources (Legal Research Guide; 36) and E. Laurita Finch, Employment Compliance Requirements Under the Americans With Disabilities Act for the Mentally Ill Employee and Potential Applicant: A Pathfinder (Legal Research Guide; 35) If you want to pursue this possibility please let me know.

 

Choice of Topic

It is normally best to choose a topic that contains some undecided law. If you choose a topic on which the U. S. Supreme Court has spoken, for example, you may have some difficulty expanding the topic sufficiently or you may have to investigate more speculative areas of the law. For example, if you chose the topic: "researching the unconstitutionality of the U. S. federal income tax", you would need to discuss the history of the movement, why the law has been held constitutional, and past and current challenges to the law. IT WOULD NOT BE SUFFICIENT to cite the statute and the Supreme Court case and then tell me that the issue has been decided.

Some sample pathfinders available in the Law Library are:

Corcos, Christine A., The Child in International Law: A Pathfinder and Selected Bibliography, 23 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 171 (1991). Excerpted in International Law Anthology (Anthony D'Amato, ed., Anderson Publishing Company, 1995), at 327-328 (Law Library Reserve JX 3091 .I6586 1994)

Some other pathfinders in the law review literature include:

Environmental Law

Schwartz, Adam D., The Law of Environmental Justice: A Research Pathfinder, 25 Envt=l L. Rep. 10543 (October 1995).

Shanklin, Carita, Pathfinder: Environmental Justice, 24 Ecology L. Q. 333 (May 1997).

Family Law

Laughlin, Barbara, Pathfinder: Economic Effects of Divorce on Women, 14 Legal Ref. Serv. Q. 57 (Winter 1995).

Law and Religion

Adams, Edward J., Pathfinder on Indian Religious Freedom, 15 Legal Ref. Serv. Q. 15 (Summer/Fall 1996).

Some sample pathfinders available on the web are listed at:

http://www.law.lsu.edu/library/biblio/legal.htm

http://www.law.lsu.edu/library/lawhum/LegalresearchandwritingSites.htm

Individual pathfinders are often located on law library and institutional websites.

http://www.nku.edu/~furnish/internatlaw.html

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~g-jack/pathfinders/brumpath.htm

http://www.aallnet.org/sis/ripssis/eis.html

http://www.epi.umn.edu/alcohol/pathfinder/p_index.html (This is a wonderful example of a really useful and well organized pathfinder).

See also a sample list of pathfinders.

Length and coverage

Your pathfinder should include as much material as a researcher (identified in your introduction to the material) would reasonably need to cover the issue, and it should be as long as needed to address the materials listed. Generally it should be between 15 and 20 pages. 

Title

You will want to avoid humorous or misleading titles for your pathfinder. "A Pathfinder on Artificial Insemination" (the name of a real publication) is a descriptive but somewhat unfortunate title.

Format

You can prepare your pathfinder in printed or electronic form (for loading on the web).

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