Basic Legal Research Skills: How Do I Stack Up?
Sometimes it’s hard to judge whether you’re a competent legal researcher, or whether there are still areas that you need to work on before you get out into practice. It’s sometimes even a little tricky to say exactly what are the key legal research skills you are expected to master.
The American Association of Law Libraries has developed the AALL Legal Research Competencies and Standards for Law Student Information Literacy, which can help you to gauge how far you are along in the process of mastering legal research.
Some of the basic skills include:
- Differentiating between primary and secondary sources
- Identifying and using the most effective secondary sources
- Clarifying or refining the research question as needed
- Updating or expanding the research
- Developing an appropriate research plan for each discrete issue
- Identifying the most cost-efficient sources
- Understanding the necessity of validating case holdings
- Understanding when to stop the research process
- Understanding and utilizing proper citation forms
- Consistently applying criteria to evaluate the reliability of information
- Identifying historical sources or scholarship from other disciplines
- Locating background information to help answer a legal issue
- Affirmatively undertaking training on research platforms as new iterations reach the market
This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of legal research competencies. You can find the full list on the AALL website. In addition to your legal writing and other classes and vendor trainings, you can get legal research training through our Spring 2014 Research Certificate Seminar series.
