V. Enriching Legal Education with Advanced Research Instruction

Remedying poor legal research habits, cultivating advanced research skills, and coping with negative research conditions require broader exposure throughout the law school curriculum than stand-alone advanced legal research courses can provide. Because clinics closely resemble law practice, they are ideally suited for including customized advanced research instruction. Bastress and Harbaugh were surprised to learn in a recent law practice technology survey that legal professionals are mainly using the Internet for factual investigations rather than for traditional legal research.181 They advise their colleagues who teach fact investigation in clinical programs to incorporate Internet research strategies:

In our experience, law library professionals are adept in developing such online information research plans. Perhaps we need to consider how to integrate presentations by librarians into our clinical curriculum. 182

This article agrees wholeheartedly and encourages clinical faculty to consider possibilities for integrating customized research instruction in their courses. Given the clinic's time constraints and need to address a broad range of skills, librarians who like to teach and who are good teachers can partner with clinicians to improve clinical students' research skills. Advanced legal research, largely law librarian taught, is well established within the mainstream law school curriculum;183 like other skills courses it continues to evolve by refining its pedagogy and content184 and connecting instruction to problem solving. The MacCrate Report, as Cordon notes, “recognizes that legal research is not a distinct skill, but . . . is part of a process of problem solving.”185 Since most clinical courses teach problem solving skills, it would benefit students to have advanced research instruction in these courses. (The appendices to this article include sample course materials from advanced legal research at the University of Missouri-Columbia and suggestions for adapting these materials to a smaller clinical research instruction module.)

In some ways the advanced legal research course at the University of Missouri-Columbia differs from a traditional advanced legal research course. With the objective to help students see research as a problem solving tool rather than an end in itself, it emphasizes research planning and strategy as case development and case management tools. It also requires more substantive legal analysis than students might expect in a traditional research course. Although research is still the instructors'186 expertise and course focus, the teaching attempts to include lessons from other skills courses that are relevant to practitioner research.187 Traditional and innovative research instruction methods add variety to the course. These include teaching practitioner research sources, simulating law practice research, and inverting the classroom. Self-learning and collaborations prepare students to research independently and to work cooperatively in strategizing, analyzing, and applying research.

A. Teaching Practitioner Research Sources

Because practice materials are ordinarily covered only briefly in first year legal research classes, most students are not familiar with the major sources lawyers consult unless they clerk or take an advanced legal research course. An advanced legal research course exposes students to looseleaf services,188 formbooks,189 continuing legal education materials,190 and to advanced database content,191 search strategies192 and search features.193 These new tools and competencies help students connect legal research to law practice.

At the University of Missouri-Columbia, a practitioner-oriented library tour introduces students to many unfamiliar resources. We show how longstanding practitioner sets, many available online, support case development and case management research.194 Determining the elements of a cause of action,195 valuing the case,196 drafting pleadings, discovery, pre-trial motions,197 negotiating settlements,198 and proving the case in court199 are some of the nuts-and-bolts practice considerations and expectations that are still fuzzy for many upper-level students.200 By giving them a meaningful, context-based introduction to these resources, the students develop some confidence that they might actually know where to begin when dealing with a real-life client in a real-life situation.201 Judging from the looks on their faces when they see these resources for the first time (and from comments outside class), we know we have relieved some of their fears about the unknown aspects of law practice. They begin to understand what is expected of them. By showing how these sources can help them complete specific lawyering tasks such as drafting a complaint, removing a case to federal court, crafting interrogatories, serving and filing motions, etc., students accept (some even embrace) legal research as a powerful law practice ally, instead of a rite of passage or grunt work.

Concurrent with practitioner print materials, we introduce specialized electronic resources and have students practice advanced electronic searching techniques. Although advanced legal research students have been using Westlaw and Lexis since starting law school, few have ventured much beyond the cases, statutes, and journal databases. Topical litigation newsletters, verdict reporters, public records and docket files, looseleaf alerts, practice libraries and other similar resources expand the practitioner's information seeking and research options. The goal is not for students to memorize lists of specialized resources, but to know that resources of this nature exist and how to find them.202

A practitioner's print tour and advanced electronic resource instruction can easily be downsized from the broader content covered in a semester long advanced legal research course to smaller modules more targeted to clinical work. The print tour should focus on sources directly supporting the clinic's mission and the online instruction should provide ample free Internet research instruction and also cover commercial databases the clinic has access to.

B. Simulating Practitioner Research

To become independent researchers, students must be motivated to seek and learn how to use resources on their own. The pedagogical challenge is how to move beyond canned treasure-hunt exercises and engage students in directing their own information-seeking activities. Customizing individual research assignments, despite increasing the instructors' workload, motivates student learning far more than having them all work on the same problems could. The varied subject matter also gives the class a busy law office feel and opportunities for the students to share information and new-found knowledge on wide-ranging procedural and substantive issues.

1. Mentoring (Instructor/Student)

As their main project or capstone, advanced legal research courses, ours included, often have students prepare research guides (sometimes called pathfinders) on a legal or law-related topic. A typical research guide collects and organizes the sources one would need to conduct research on the topic.203 We encourage students to choose a topic that closely matches their interests in practicing law, or a topic that would be useful to them if they were pursuing a non-traditional legal career path.204 We require a “substantially complete”205 draft early in the semester. In the first month of class we review basic research skills and sources, conduct the print tours and introduce specialized online practitioner resources. As we cover each subject (e.g., statutory, regulatory, court rules, etc.), we prompt students to build their draft incrementally by having them find equivalent sources on their topic. Student feedback indicates that those who conscientiously participated in these bite-sized assignments find the production of the research guide fairly painless.

Minimizing pain helps, but rarely inspires. While the students are working on their draft, we research and prepare customized research assignments that put their guides to immediate use. The assignments are handled as research simulations in one-on-one meetings, with the instructor playing a senior attorney with an actual client problem. Assignments include both short206 and lengthier research projects.207 We create the fact patterns based on the student's research guide topic and try to design the problems around unsettled or complex issues.208

The students sometimes find that they know exactly how to research the problem because of background and resources gathered while preparing their research guide. Already knowing the statutory and regulatory landscape of their subject and secondary sources they could turn to helps make their research more efficient and effective than starting from scratch. Students who are stumped by their research assignments see where their research guide draft falls short. Either, or both, of these realizations are instructive to the students.

We provide for frequent one-on-one mentoring throughout. Although time consuming and research intensive for us, the individual meetings and assignments applying the guides are invaluable in capturing “teachable moments” with students. They are delving into a subject that interests them, they have already made some attempts to ferret out information, and they are beginning to realize where they need direction. Giving them attention and help at this moment exposes the students to the wider realm of practitioner sources available on their topic and the value of a “colleague's” research experience and expertise. It also conditions students to ask the right questions: “is there another resource out there that might meet my needs (and how can I find it)?” and “is there someone who could help direct me to information I might otherwise miss?”209

We are more interested in how students exercise judgment in organizing, evaluating and applying their research than in finding a single pre-determined answer. When giving the assignment, we downplay our objectivity preferring to see how students reconcile client demands with adverse authority. We expect students to correct our intentionally client-biased preconceptions and to suggest creative (reasonable) alternatives when the law does not favor the client.210 This may entail recommending new avenues of research or helping clients adjust their goals and expectations. Many students find it difficult to work through uncertainties and ambiguities in their research assignments. Their frustration over not knowing exactly what our expectations are (when role-playing the assignments) teaches them how to work through “real life” research assignments that are rarely straightforward and often poorly negotiated.211

2. Inverting the Classroom (Self-Directed and Peer Learning)

Students bring diverse research skills and experiences to advanced legal research courses. Those who have already mastered research basics usually expect to start off learning advanced skills and will be impatient with too much first year review. Students who believe they did not learn legal research very well the first time around may benefit from taking a second pass at the material from a different perspective. Devoting significant class time to remedial work, and lecturing extensively, even on advanced subjects, would limit opportunities for experiential learning. Although knowledge of basic research sources and techniques is a prerequisite, students develop advanced legal research skills by working in situations closely resembling what they will experience in practice.

In order to provide appropriate instruction for widely disparate research abilities and time for skills practice, we incorporate a methodology called “inverting the classroom” to deliver traditional instruction outside class. Although instructors have undoubtedly used similar techniques for years, Lage, Platt, and Treglia are credited with coining “inverting the classroom” as a documented teaching methodology.212 These economics educators observed that a typical classroom included students with a wide variety of learning styles-many of which are incompatible with the instructor's personal or preferred teaching style.213 To accommodate multiple learning styles, students had to become responsible in part for directing their own learning outside of class. For class preparation, students selected the tools the professors provided that were most suitable for their learning the basic material before class.214 It was the students' responsibility (or burden) to assess their own research skill and comfort levels, and to use supplementary materials (or consult us individually) as needed to bring themselves up to speed. This approach models the commitment to self-learning that practitioners will need in their legal careers.

We use classroom time to build on the basic knowledge, answer questions, explore topics in greater depth, and discuss practitioner research expectations. Inverting the classroom also facilitates peer instruction such as small group research exercises, problem solving activities in which students apply their research, and peer review of research assignments in progress. Regardless of preferred learning (and working) styles, potential lawyers must master collaborative skills.215 From day one, students are encouraged to talk with their classmates, colleagues, employers, and librarians about their research problems. Law is not practiced (or is not practiced very well) in a vacuum, neither is legal research. Inverting the classroom gives us time and freedom to oversee the practice of collaborative research skills and provide immediate instructor and peer feedback. Classroom law office simulations add context and a real-life atmosphere to advanced research instruction that lectures and library exercises ordinarily lack.

Group Strategizing and Research Planning. With the instructors once again role-playing senior attorneys, we use a group exercise to practice McDonnell's audience research concepts discussed in Part III.C.216 The firm's junior associates are summoned to a brainstorming and planning meeting. Students are given a file memo in advance of the meeting.217 Together, we identify and bat about legal issues, while discussing the various “audiences” that we need to understand, persuade, and convince. Then, each table is assigned one “audience” to work on in greater depth.218 The groups brainstorm and develop a research plan that addresses the facts and issues we want to know more about associated with that “audience.” Each group proposes options that might solve or manage the “problem” their client encounters with that particular audience. Many of the recommendations do not call for traditional legal action but are practical suggestions for addressing a client's problem.219 Those who brainstorm legal remedies discuss the research they would need to conduct before reporting back to the assigning attorney or client.

Collaborative Research. In another group exercise, we divide the class into “practice groups” based on their research guide topics. We assigned students as much as possible to groups that have complementary interests (past groups have included family law, bankruptcy, personal injury, and intellectual property). We then assign one student the role of senior attorney and devise a research scenario based on that student's research guide topic. The senior attorney is responsible for assigning research tasks to his/her team, guiding the team to helpful resources, and evaluating research findings. The senior attorneys already have some knowledge about the topic from their draft research guides, but it is up to their junior associates to research specifics. The students are given class time to meet with team members and to conduct part of their research. The simulation concludes with the entire team meeting as a group with an instructor, who facilitates a discussion of the research results, and, perhaps more importantly, a “post-mortem” of the process and an evaluation of the performance of all participants.

Consulting. Throughout the course, we encourage collaboration with experts outside of the class. Because students chose their own research guide topics, many already have some relationships with “experts” in their field-professors, attorneys, co-workers, etc. Students who take advantage of these opportunities learn to value people as much as books or databases for their research; positive affirmations from respected figures go a long way toward building skills confidence.220