Chicago-Kent College of Law held their second one-day “Back to the Future of Legal Research” symposium on May 18, 2007. Aimed at both law librarians and legal writing instructors, over 175 attendees examined how one can stay up with the latest legal research techniques and how to pass these techniques on to our students.
The morning began with a presentation by Mary Alice Baish, AALL’s Associate Washington Affairs Representative, on the future of primary legal resources on the web, given the lack of authentication and official status given much of the law on state websites. Then Professor Ian Gallacher, Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the Legal Research & Writing Program, Syracuse University College of Law, spoke on his proposal that law schools form a consortium to put all American primary law in an open source database, available for free to all.
Following these thought-provoking presenta-tions was a series of speakers presenting the results of some surveys and focus groups in the Chicago area on the “realities” of legal research as practiced in firms. One interesting result was that the more experienced attorneys used a lot more free internet sites than one would have expected and that they wanted their new attorneys to have a better understanding of these sites.
After lunch, there were three sets of break-out sessions. I attended the session on “Developing Effective and Well-Coordinated First-Year Legal Research Programs,” where a panel of four legal writing instructors and law librarians discussed their research programs. I thought it was fascinating how many different ways research instructors have developed to teach these classes. So much seems to depend on the status of the legal writing staff (permanent vs. adjunct), the size of the 1L class, and the time allotted to research (4 vs. 6 vs. 8 weeks). Other issues discussed included how much teaching we should have the Lexis and Westlaw representa-tives doing, the “best” order in which to teach topics, and which legal research textbooks, if we use them at all. I came away with the impression that schools are revising their 1L classes every year to deal with lessons learned, as well as changes in legal research materials and in their schools.
Other sessions included topics such as Web 2.0, teaching how to be research selective by stressing intentionality, using CALI legal research lessons, adding international materials in legal research classes, and putting legal research into context by doing research exercises after writing exercises.
Handouts, podcasts, and photos of the symposium are available at www.kentlaw.edu/academics/lrw/future/. Bonnie Shucha, Head of Reference, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Law Library, and one of the panel participants in the session on Web 2.0, also blogged some of the conference. Her posts are available beginning with this one at www.law.wisc.edu/blogs/wisblawg/2007/05/back_to_the_future_of_legal_re.html.
All in all this was an excellent symposium; the only thing I wanted was another day to discuss the issues raised.