Principles of Legal Research will be published in June and available for fall 2009 class adoptions. Principles of Legal Research is the long-awaited successor to the venerable How to Find the Law, 9th edition, thoroughly updated for the electronic age. The text provides encyclopedic yet concise coverage of research methods and resources using both free and commercial websites as well as printed publications. An introductory survey of research strategies is followed by chapters on the sources of U.S. law created by each branch of government, discussion of major secondary sources, and an overview of international and comparative law. Sample illustrations are included, and an appendix lists nearly 500 major treatises and looseleaf services by subject.

Instructors who are looking for a clear and concise text introducing students to the basic methods of legal research will welcome Legal Research Explained . Based upon the legal research section of Bouchoux’s highly successful Legal Research and Writing for Paralegals, The material in this text has been modified, condensed and updated to fit courses covering only legal research. This engaging text helps students develop both knowledge and confidence: • using a building-block approach, which is instrumental in ensuring that students master the critical skills of legal research, Bouchoux discusses conventional print legal research sources before computer-assisted and electronic sources. Similarly, primary authorities are discussed before secondary authorities and statutes are covered before cases, because this is the order in which it happens in practice • divided into five sections : 1) conducting legal research using primary authorities; 2) conducting legal research using secondary authorities and other research aids; 3) computer-assisted legal research And The Internet; 4) legal citation form and validating authorities; and 5) “putting it all together” and providing a final overview of the legal research process • Text includes: o examples of citation form (in both ALWD and Bluebook format) o questions relating To The materials discussed in each chapter and requiring students to use pertinent sources to locate the answers to those questions o section at the end of each chapter requiring students to access the Internet to locate answers to questions so that students become proficient in quickly locating the types of information an employer will require them to retrieve, such as local court rules o Practice Tips in each chapter, offering realistic and helpful suggestions for workplace success • up-to-date sample pages in each chapter illustrate the features of various legal research authorities. the book is part of a comprehensive instructional package that includes PowerPoint slides and an extensive Instructor’s Manual featuring: • sample syllabi • information on teaching strategies • chapter-by-chapter resource information • answer keys for all discussion questions and Internet assignments • detailed suggestions for additional assignments • a Test Bank of exam questions Professors in search of a text that applies a building-block approach to developing a firm foundation for legal research are sure to be delighted with Bouchoux’s new book; Legal Research Explained . In addition to providing students with the skills and resources that they will need as they progress professionally, instructors are also provided with a comprehensive educational package to aid in the effort to impart a complete understanding of the fundamentals of legal research. An author website to support classroom instruction using this title is available at http://www.aspenlawschool.com/bouchoux_explained

A long-time best-selling comprehensive text for basic legal research, The Process of Legal Research: Practices and Resources, 9E 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.

Until quite recently questions about methodology in legal research have been largely confined to understanding the role of doctrinal research as a scholarly discipline. In turn this has involved asking questions not only about coverage but, fundamentally, questions about the identity of the discipline. Is it (mainly) descriptive, hermeneutical, or normative? Should it also be explanatory? Legal scholarship has been torn between, on the one hand, grasping the expanding reality of law and its context, and, on the other, reducing this complex whole to manageable proportions. The purely internal analysis of a legal system, isolated from any societal context, remains an option, and is still seen in the approach of the French academy, but as law aims at ordering society and influencing human behaviour, this approach is felt by many scholars to be insufficient. Consequently many attempts have been made to conceive legal research differently. Social scientific and comparative approaches have proven fruitful. However, does the introduction of other approaches leave merely a residue of 'legal doctrine', to which pockets of social sciences can be added, or should legal doctrine be merged with the social sciences? What would such a broad interdisciplinary field look like and what would its methods be? This book is an attempt to answer some of these questions.

Marke, Julius J., Editor. A Catalogue of the Law Collection at New York University With Selected Annotations. New York: The Law Center of New York University, 1953. xxxi, 1372 pp. Reprinted 1999 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 99-19939. ISBN 1-886363-91-9. Cloth. $195. * Reprint of the massive, well-annotated catalogue compiled by the librarian of the School of Law at New York University. Classifies approximately 15,000 works excluding foreign law, by Sources of the Law, History of Law and its Institutions, Public and Private Law, Comparative Law, Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, Political and Economic Theory, Trials, Biography, Law and Literature, Periodicals and Serials and Reference Material. With a thorough subject and author index. This reference volume will be of continuous value to the legal scholar and bibliographer, due not only to the works included but to the authoritative annotations, often citing more than one source. Besterman, A World Bibliography of Bibliographies 3461.