Legal research must be comprehensive and precise. One contrary source you miss may invalidate other sources you plan to rely on. Sticking to a strategy will save time, ensure completeness and improve your work product.
The practice of law is constantly evolving—new laws, new business models, and new ways to approach traditional practice areas are all on the horizon. These “laws new” deserve your close attention to understand how they may impact your clients, colleagues, and the future of your firm.
Using a combination of legal, policy and economic analysis, this article examines how changes in technology are transforming the way lawyers think about their practice. It looks at the implications of a host of technologies, including artificial intelligence and robotic process automation (RPA), and discusses how each of these changes is affecting client expectations, legal services delivery, and the economics of the practice of law.
In addition, it explains why the current state of law practice cannot be sustained in its present form, and offers some recommendations to move forward.
This guide was designed with the 1L Legal Research & Writing course in mind, but it will also assist any beginning researcher. It walks you through a general strategy for conducting legal research, step by step. By following this strategy, you will save time, ensure your work is complete and accurate, and make the most of your research resources.
Laws new
Legal researchers face a formidable task in tracking new law. Often, statutes that have been enacted into law are not immediately incorporated into the collection of laws published online or in print. This is because it can take time for a legislative body to pass a bill, and even longer for that law to be published. Moreover, when legislation is changed or amended, it may not be immediately reflected in the collection of laws.
Fortunately, most statutes are organized into a group of related subjects called a statutory scheme. These statutory schemes are published together, usually with a title, chapter, or act designation. When you search a particular subject, it is easy to find the relevant statutes by browsing through the table of contents. This method allows you to start with the general subjects (titles, or divisions), then move on to particular topics (chapters, or articles) and finally to the specific sections you need.
This Article explores the use of empirical data in legal scholarship, a phenomenon that is quickly becoming central to the field. It considers some of the problems inherent in incorporating such data into legal analysis and proposes a framework for evaluating its validity and applicability to specific legal questions. It also argues that the use of statistical evidence can be a valuable tool in understanding and interpreting legal doctrine, despite its limitations. The use of empirical data in the study of law requires careful thought and caution, however, as it raises complex issues of methodology and interpretation that must be carefully evaluated. It is therefore important that the use of such data be monitored closely, both by scholars and practitioners.