Law Librarian’s Beef: High-Tech Law Students Do ‘Wal-Mart’-Style Research

jon
Aug 8, 2008 6:52 AM CST

I liken it to the use of steroids in sports. If you don’t use the most powerful tool at your disposal you are at a disadvantage. The practice of law rarely mimics the tortoise and the hare. We have to execute and move on to the next problem. With the quality writing I see coming from attorneys these days I feel more than confident with a product I put together in one afternoon.

Al
Aug 8, 2008 7:13 AM CST

This is so true!  Too many young lawyers (including myself) have become so reliant on Westlaw and other electronic databases to search for answers to specific issues that they fail to appreciate how the “answer” they find fits into the overall body of law.  This causes two problems:  (1) the accuracy of the result is called into question, and (2) the lawyer misses other case law that may be helpful.  I find the better approach is to start with a treatise that gives an overview, then use the West Digest hard copies (which show you how your issue fits into a subject area of the law), and THEN do your more narrow search.

joe
Aug 8, 2008 7:33 AM CST

Lexis and west are more powerful and have more sources than they did 12 years ago.  Sometimes it is more cost effective to get it on-line then to go to the library.  Attorneys can cut corners no matter what resource they use.

richard
Aug 8, 2008 7:38 AM CST

I’m a 20-year lawyer who wins several cases a year because opposing counsel, sometimes from very good firms, do slapdash legal research. This always happened, but it happens more now. I use a “results-oriented” approach too, but my result is to win. Real-life legal research doesn’t necessarily have to be comprehensive, but it does need to be complete enough for the job—and that’s where baby lawyers are falling down. But you guys keep doing it that way. It makes this ol’ tortoise look just that much better. There are still fast(er) ways into the law—digests and ALRs, and sometimes law review and bar journal articles—in other words, find where someone has already done the research. But treating Westlaw like Google isn’t an effective strategy.

old lawyer
Aug 8, 2008 7:58 AM CST

A choice for every client or perhaps a law firm motto:  “We do work that’s good, fast and cheap.  Pick two.”

Jake
Aug 8, 2008 8:28 AM CST

I’m surprised no one here has mentioned the fact that often it’s clients that don’t want to pay for extended research.

I Agree with this article
Aug 8, 2008 9:28 AM CST

There are several comments referencing clerking, but I think the librarian in this article is referring to research techniques used to complete law school projects which often don’t have the same time constraints as project while clerking at a firm. 

The point I think she is trying to make is this: If you throughly learn a pathway, you better know when and where to take shortcuts and still get to your destination.  The same holds true for legal research.

Ken
Aug 8, 2008 9:44 AM CST

Law School should be where you HAVE to do it the hard way. I remember that in my first semester 13 years ago, we weren’t allowed to use Westlaw and LEXIS.  Books, keycites and paper to do your first memo.  And in case you young ones think that once you are out the door from law school and won’t see the books again, think again.  I worked for a firm where they didn’t even subscribe to LEXIS and use the West digests exclusively.  It was a a shock to my system to be sure since I’d not been near the books in years before that, but I had to adapt and it cost me valuable transition time.

Learn all you can learn in law school, including the seemingly pointless stuff.  It WILL save your bacon one day.

greg
Aug 8, 2008 10:34 AM CST

Yes, the article is about law students, but keep in mind many work as clerks for firms, and so learn ‘bad’ habits (i.e., sloppy research) there. Monkey see, monkey do, so to speak. If their bosses at the firm aren’t putting in the time (or pressuring them not to), what do they learn? That what the librarians say isn’t how it works in the ‘real world’.

It all comes down to money, and clients often don’t like to pay for four hours of research for a six page reply brief, even if you are researching a make-or-break issue.

Java
Aug 8, 2008 11:16 AM CST

Long time law librarian here. Last year, while teaching a student to use Westlaw, I told him to note an old citation on a scrap paper, and we’d get the case from the book.  He looked at me and said, “I have to write ALL that?” Yup, all 7 letters and numbers of an A2d cite. Iwondered if he’d rather text it to whoever he had on the other end of the cell phone. I think the attention span of many students has been shortened to about the time it takes you to read a cell phone screen. I just can’t imagine some of them writing an entire complaint or memo.

Martha
Aug 8, 2008 12:37 PM CST

As a judge working with law clerks and interns and observing other judge’s clerks, it is striking to me how much law students today rely upon “word searches,” as opposed to other techniques that include both computer resources and books.  I find that, with my 25 years of research experience, I can frequently research an issue more thoroughly in a fraction of the time of most of the law clerks at my court.  As a lawyer, I had the same experience as Richard (#7) and won many cases because of better research.  If you are skilled at research, you can do “good, fast, and cheap.”  It just takes training, thoughtfulness, and desire.  It’s not as much fun as other tasks, but it wins cases (and wins over other judges if you’re clerking).

John Hightower
Aug 8, 2008 1:39 PM CST

Response to this comment:  “Unfortunate story of yet another frustrated librarian. Completely out of touch with the results-oriented environment in which students and attorneys exist.”  The phenomenon of slap-dash poor online research is not merely the observation of academic law librarians, but is confirmed by the observations of law-firm librarians as well as judicial librarians who work for federal judges.  The later two groups often are the ones who have to “clean up after” the work the practicing lawyers (or law clerks) haven’t done properly.  And usually, it’s not speed that causes the problem, but rather the failure to explore all the options in finding the correct answer.  Indeed, several state bar associations have invested in providing second-rate (if not third-rate) computer-aided research services for their members.  Any attorney who uses those second-rate (cheaper) services should expect poor results.

Rick
Aug 9, 2008 12:21 AM CST

#22 - Careful reading, please.  The lawyer who offered the “sketch it out first” advice did say you shouldn’t use this approach until you’ve been working in that practice area and “know the lay of the land,” so R did qualify the need to understand the law before researching à la MadLib.

#23 - The NC Bar Association offers us Casemaker, which, while not on par with LN/WL, is a very useful tool if you understand its limitations.  It has a decent “sheperdizing” feature, and it’s fairly current.  If I have to do some research to get the basic gist of the law, it saves me that initial trip to the library, and gives me a place to start when I get there.  As a recent graduate, and a soon-to-be GP/solo practitioner, I don’t have the luxury of a law library at-hand just yet, so these “second-rate” tools are very useful until I can afford Strong’s NC Index.  In the worst of cases, I can always do the legwork for free in CaseMaker, and pay a lot less to validate it for a fee on LexisOne.

I came to the law after a 20-year IT career, and while I feel I got quite good at LN/WL, it was certainly not by using it like Google.  (But then, I probably don’t use Google the same way most people do….)  I happen to enjoy the books, but I have to be careful because I can easily get lost on fascinating tangents there.

One “research tool” nobody ever seems to think of is casebooks.  I was always amazed that people sell them as soon as the class is over.  I’ve kept all of mine.  For me, they’re like having a topical law library at hand.  Even if somewhat out-of-date in the worst of cases, they are practically organized like a West index, I am familiar with the “stories,” and I can use them as a starting place to sheperdize for currency, or to check the rule in my jurisdiction.  Want to know that status of subcontractors, reliance, and estoppel?  Drennan v. Star Paving.  (Still good law in California, last I looked.)  Proximate cause?  Palsgraf.  Take it from there.

In the end, the “theory” you learned in law school was not just all wasted intellectual exercise; it was theory based in canonical, majority-rule law.

Rick
Aug 9, 2008 8:27 AM CST

We had to learn the books first.  But if you don’t practice, you do forget the drill.  And, yes, contrary to the belief of many who go straight to the word search boxes, the on-line services DO have key indexes, AmJurs, ALRs, etc.; they’re not paying someone to do all those headnotes for nothing!

Kelly
Aug 12, 2008 7:52 AM CST

Using books and Internet research is fine and dandy for the big firms that can afford to pay for both. If you can only afford one, there is simply no question—you need Lexis or Westlaw, not books. If you absolutely need the books (you know, about once a year) you have to take the time to head down to the law library, but this is time-prohibitive 95% of the time or more, and even worse if you practice in a small town hours away from the nearest law library.

SJ
Aug 13, 2008 2:02 PM CST

RE: #30, When discussing legal research classes, the library directors at law schools in our city that we’ve talked with have indicated that professors general don’t want to spare any class time to have legal research taught. Kind of like a NIMBY type attitude. Students should know how to do this but not at the expense of any of their lessons.