The Ginger (Law) Librarian

The  Wall Street Journal (sub req'd) is reporting on pushback against difficult bar exams (particularly California's bar). One camp of law-industry watchers blames the drop in passing rates on the declining credentials of incoming classes. Others point to changing study habits of so-called millennials, who grew up with the ability to find information at their fingertips and aren't accustomed to the intensive memorization and writing skills needed to pass a bar exam.  The article ultimately asks:  Does the exam even test what incoming lawyers need to know? It seems that, based on what a lawyer actually does, the test should be about spotting legal issues, research, and proper legal analysis. A law school education prepares students to spot the multitude of legal issues to Explore those issues using sound (efficient and effective) legal research methods To do a proper legal analysis of the various issues (or the call of the question, as it were) with cites to rel

Instead of getting bogged down trying to instruct on the nuts-and-bolts of each database, it is more important to emphasize a research process that works in any database. To that end, I've always taught a version of the Rombauer Method of legal research . Preliminary Analysis – developing search strings and searching secondary sources for an overview of the topic Codified Law – searching constitutions, codes, court rules, and regulations Binding Precedent – searching case law that the court must follow from a particular jurisdiction Persuasive Precedent – searching case law that the court may follow from other jurisdictions The beauty of this research process is that it can be geared toward any database. As long as the user can maneuver the database to find relevant secondary sources, he or she will be able to fulfill the first step of the research process and so on. If students use this research process to keep their research strategic and organized, they should fee

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that business schools are taking a stand against academic rankings. Business-school deans and research faculty at more than 20 universities are taking a stand against the academic rankings published by media outlets such as Bloomberg Businessweek, Nikkei Inc.’s Financial Times and the Economist Group. Rather than “acquiesce to methods of comparison we know to be fundamentally misleading,” the administrators are urging their peers at other schools to stop participating in a process they say rates programs on an overly narrow set of criteria. Those in the business of rankings say that the rankings help students make an informed decision about what is likely among the most expensive purchases these students will make in their lives.  The administrators opposed to the rankings methodologies are of the opinion that if the goal is to help inform [students] about how to make the best decision about business schools, let’s give them the raw informat