Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Dunn

J.D. Course 360 | 1 credit hours

This course will reinforce the skills learned in the Legal Research and Writing course. Students will learn how to develop strategies for approaching legal research problems and how to select and use the basic legal sources. Topics covered include the legal research process, statutory and regulatory research, case law research sources and techniques, using secondary sources effectively, legislative history, and understanding the different varieties and uses of legal treatises. In addition, the course will address the advantages and disadvantages of online and print versions of basic sources, and why a researcher might choose one or the other in researching any particular issue. At the end of the course, the student will have gained valuable knowledge and experience in identifying basic legal sources. This basic course provides limited opportunities for completing extensive research problems and, instead, focuses on strategies for approaching these types of problems. Class will meet for a two hour lecture for half the semester. Grading will be based on a series of assignments due at the beginning of each class and a short exam at the end of the semester.

Prerequisite: Legal Research and Writing (or the equivalent Legal Practice: Writing and Analysis).

Students may not receive credit for both this course and Advanced Legal Research.

This course will meet for seven Thursdays in the first half of the Fall 2009 semester on the following dates: 9/3, 9/10, 9/17, 9/24, 10/1, 10/8, and 10/15.