The Ginger (Law) Librarian

Too often, searching for relevant information and the ultimate analysis of facts to law is disjointed. That's because teaching the analysis of the law is often left up to the doctrinal professors or the writing professors. But analysis is inherent to the legal research process. Using the 4-step legal research process to find relevant information requires that the researcher has the ability to analyze the law to select the material that will aid in their arguments.  Legal research is inevitably a back-and-forth process. The researcher starts with secondary sources to get a better understanding of the cause of action. The researcher moves onto the codified law to understand what needs to be analyzed in light of the facts of the case. The researcher then continues with binding and persuasive precedent to craft arguments by comparing facts and analogizing or distinguishing from case precedent.  A researcher cannot begin to know what types of binding and persua...

Image from AALL Twitter During Bryan Stevenson 's keynote at AALL in Austin  (login req'd), he noted and expounded on 4 things that will improve justice: Get proximate to injustice Change the narratives that sustain injustice Stay hopeful Do uncomfortable things His message is an important one, and law librarians certainly have a role to play in improving access to justice.  Throughout his keynote, I couldn't help but connect these 4 things to the issues facing law librarianship, in general. Like improving justice, law librarians need to work to improve the state of our profession to ensure that we can continue to assist with access to justice issues, among other things, for years to come.  In that regard, we can do similar things to improve law librarianship:       1. Get proximate to the issues facing law librarianship There is a myriad of issues facing law librarianship : budgets , staffing , librarian support ,...

AALL in Austin is just around the corner. I'm excited to be surrounded by my favorite cohort of humans and feel inspired by all of the wonderful programs!  If you're in Austin, please drop by the Austin Convention Center’s Exhibit Hall 4, Poster #29: You Can't Write Without Research: Developing a Scholarly Research Writing Program at Your Law School.  Safe travels to Austin!

According to Dictionary.com, Palimpsest is defined as: noun 1. a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text In the case of most law libraries, the "other text" is now electronic. As late as 2015, I was still in denial about the transition . Many of my blog posts have centered around the benefits of print ( here , here , here , here ). I still love print, and I still believe that there is a beauty in the serendipity of exploring the stacks. But even physically exploring the stacks is less relevant today. For example, our catalog now shows a preview of the books on the shelf near a book that we are interested in. When performing a search for Divergent Paths by Richard Posner, the following virtual browse display shows the books nearby: Budget constraints coupled with patron preference for electronic access means that our print collections are dwindling. There's no use romanticizing print while...

As law school budgets continue to shrink, it's not unreasonable to presume that many law libraries are coming under increased scrutiny. Law school administrators cannot touch faculty salaries or law student financial aid. When a dean looks at a law school budget , the biggest expenditure after faculty salaries is the library, and many must now wonder "what are all those people doing with all that money?" Accordingly, one of the budget-cutting measures may be to consider  combining the law library with the university library . Historically, as the heart of the law school, law school libraries have functioned apart from the greater university library community. In a 1957 study, forty of the forty-one responding law libraries did not want to be considered part of the university library system or be a part of its administrative structure, even if they currently were. This position was codified through section 602(a) of the ABA standards, which requires law schools to “hav...

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 r...

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...