Conducting effective research is a fundamental legal skill, and research instruction provides an essential intellectual component in legal education. In our constantly changing information environment, legal research education must move law students towards becoming “information literate,” with an ability to articulate and evaluate the problem presented to them, identify appropriate information resources and use them correctly, evaluate and analyze research results, and apply the results to help solve their problem.
At the January 2011 meeting of the Assn. of American Law Schools, presenters, chosen from a Call for Papers, explored all aspects of legal research education and information literacy, including defining information literacy for legal professionals; the development of information literacy standards and
outcome measurements; legal research instructional techniques, evaluation, and assessment; and the preparation of law students to become lifelong learners in the legal research field.
The papers presented were:
“How Law Student Information Literacy (LSIL) Standards Address Deficits Identified by the MacCrate Report and the Carnegie Report, and What They Mean for Legal Research Education & Training” by Dennis Kim-Prieto, Rutgers School of Law - Newark“Embedded Librarians: Teaching Legal Research as a Lawyering Skill” by Vicenç Feliú and Helen Frazer, David A. Clarke School of Law, University of the District of Columbia
“Differences in Search Resu lts Using Westlaw and Lexis: The Continued Need for Redundancy in Legal Research” by Susan Nevelow Mart, Univ. of California Hastings College of the Law