Many students and first-time practitioners may know of certain legal textbooks which cover a certain area, but do not know where to look to update the knowledge these books provide. Similarly, a legal problem may arise which is not generally covered by such books. This work deals with how to find the answers, how to update an answer, how to discover if those cases have been applied since judgement was given, how to find statutes and regulators, and how to research and understand the law.

Legal Research Demystified offers a real-world approach to legal research for first-year law students. The book guides students through eight steps to research common law issues and ten steps to research statutory issues. It breaks down the research steps and process into "bite-size" pieces for novice researchers, minimizing the frustration often associated with learning new skills. This text also gives students context, explaining why and when a source or finding tool should be used when researching the law. The process of legal research, of course, is not linear. This book constantly reminds students of the recursive nature of legal research, and it identifies specific situations when they may deviate from the research steps. Through the book's step-by-step approach, students will connect seemingly unrelated tools (e.g., citators and the Key Number System) and understand how to leverage them to answer legal questions. Every chapter includes charts, diagrams, and screen captures to illustrate the research steps and finding methods. Each chapter concludes with a "summary of key points" section that reinforces important concepts from the chapter. This book provides students and professors with multiple assessment tools. Each chapter ends with true-false and multiple-choice questions that test students' understanding of chapter content. These questions are replicated on the book's companion website, Core Knowledge. Students may answer these end-of-chapter questions, as well as more advanced questions, on Core Knowledge and receive immediate feedback, including an explanation of why the answer is correct or incorrect. Professors can generate reports to track students' performance. Based on students' performance, professors will know whether to review a topic in more detail or to move to the next topic. (New books contain an access code to Core Knowledge; students purchasing used books can buy an access code separately.) Core Knowledge offers yet another assessment tool: interactive research exercises. These online exercises walk students through the research steps on Westlaw and Lexis Advance, giving professors the option to "flip" the classroom. Through many screen captures and tips, students can navigate both research platforms outside of class, allowing students and professors to dig deeper into the material during class. Each research exercise simulates a real-world research experience and contains self-grading questions. For example, in one exercise, students research on Westlaw to determine whether the client could recover damages against a neighbor for the emotional distress for the death of the client's dog. To answer the client's question, students must complete the research steps, including finding and reviewing secondary sources on Westlaw, using the Key Number System and KeyCite, and performing keyword searches. Professor support materials include a Teacher's Manual, sample syllabi, and sample research exams.

A solid reference for both the everyday and the unexpected legal issues, written by practicing attorneys Law 101 is an essential reference that explains: How laws are made How the court system works How each area of the law impacts your daily life Key information for important questions: How does a lawsuit begin? How do civil and criminal law differ? When do state laws trump federal laws? What makes a contract solid? What can you expect if called as a juror? What can you expect if called as a witness? And other complex areas of the law that you need to know. No home reference shelf is complete without this indispensible guide. The new edition also includes information on legal subjects that have become more important recently, including alternative dispute resolution, privacy rights, and Internet law.

A search only dictionary on the FindLaw web site that includes 10,000 definitions of legal terms.

Lawyers engaged in European/US transborder transactions need to know how to find, understand, and compare applicable foreign and international laws. Breaking the oceanic divide, this book is the first legal research guide to consider internationalization and globalization in both the new law school curriculums and the changing practice of law. The book is a significant expansion and revision of the second edition of Legal Research Methods in the US and Europe. With the inclusion of material on China, Russia, and England - and on researching foreign law in general - the book now reflects a broader scope. Regarding US legal research, this edition explains the impacts and effects of major changes and developments that have occurred very recently, including the introduction of Bloomberg Law, WestlawNext, and the revolutionary Law.gov movement.

'Law Books in Action: Essays on the Anglo-American Legal Treatise' explores the history of the legal treatise in the common law world. Rather than looking at treatises as shortcuts from 'law in books' to 'law in action', the essays in this collection ask what treatises can tell us about what troubled legal professionals at a given time, what motivated them to write what they did, and what they hoped to achieve. This book, then, is the first study of the legal treatise as a 'law book in action', an active text produced by individuals with ideas about what they wanted the law to be, not a mere stepping-stone to codes and other forms of legal writing, but a multifaceted genre of legal literature in its own right, practical and fanciful, dogmatic and ornamental in turn. This book will be of interest to legal scholars, lawyers and judges, as well as to anyone else with a scholarly interest in law in general, and legal history in particular.

For everyone from students, to lawyers, to legal scholars this book demystifies the processes of legal research, analysis, and writing from start to finish, providing readers with both a solid theoretical understanding and powerful applied practice skills. Learn both the how and the why of legal research; acquire powerful legal analytical skills; and learn how to translate your research findings into compelling presentations and winning arguments. This book provides the legal research, analysis, and writing skills you need for professional success. It strikes an optimal balance in theory and practice helping you to understand not just the how of legal research, but also the why for fuller comprehension of the process. Through interesting and compelling chapters and exercises you will learn about legal research methods and their application in practice. You will learn how to select and refine research topics and questions; how the legal/governance system functions in practice; where to find relevant facts and laws; how to analyze and interpret your findings; how to build strong evidence and arguments; how to improve your legal writing skills; and how to put these skills to work in legal practice, publications, and presentations to maximize your success. For everyone who may benefit from improving their legal research, analysis, and writing skills, this is an ideal research textbook, class supplement, and reference book.

This book bridges the gap between typical legal research texts and the needs of beginning legal researchers for concise explanations of the sources they will use early in their careers. A unique feature of this book is its emphasis on the sources a Florida attorney would use to do state and federal research. Many research texts, in contrast, emphasize federal materials and include illustrations taken from a variety of federal and state jurisdictions. The book is not, however, a bibliography of Florida sources. Instead, it combines an overview of essential primary and secondary sources with an introduction to research methods that will enable a novice researcher to move beyond the sources described in the text. Moreover, its emphasis on developing a research process and analyzing the results of legal research makes it appropriate even tot those who might not be practicing or working in Florida.

Empirical legal research is a growing field of academic expertise, yet lawyers are not always familiar with the possibilities and limitations of the available methods. Empirical Legal Research in Action presents readers with first-hand experiences of empirical research on law and legal issues. The chapters, written by an international cast of scholars, reflect on the methods that they have applied in their own empirical work, spanning a wide breadth of research from psychological experiments in personal injury to field studies in criminology. Empirical Legal Research in Action not only reviews the advantages, limitations and challenges that such methods pose but also considers the value of empiricism to lawyers and the law. Vitally, the contributions offer an academic reflection on methodological challenges, as well as the relevance, of empirical research for lawyers. This insightful book will be useful reading for academic researchers in law and for policymakers seeking to understand the methodological challenges of empirical work in legal research. Social sciences scholars will also find this book of interest to appreciate the multitude of methods in empirical legal research. Contributors include: B. Boppre, J. Crijns, P. Desmet, C. Engel, J. Etienne, I. Giesen, H. Grootelaar, P. Mascini, C.P. Reinders Folmer, M. Rorie, S.S. Simpson, W. Voermans, W.H. van Boom, K. van den Bos, I. van Oorschot