A. The Importance of Legal Research and Writing Literacy
| Author | Ted Tjaden |
| Profession | National Director of Knowledge Management McMillan LLP |
| Pages | 1-6 |
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Legal research is a practical skill needed by lawyers, law students, paralegals, judges, law librarians, and members of the public who must find and use law-related information such as court cases, legislation, commentary, and sample court documents and agreements. With the advent of the Internet and online legal databases, legal research now encompasses the need to use and master both print and online resources. Computer technology has changed much in legal research in Canada with the increase in the amount of law-related information available online and improvements in search and retrieval software. With these changes comes the need for many to learn new techniques and discover new sources for finding law-related information.
Related to legal research is legal writing, also a practical skill that requires clarity, precision, and an understanding of some basic legal writing requirements. Legal writing involves the drafting of a number of law-related documents, including legal research memos, opinion letters, business agreements, and court pleadings and factums. Fortunately, much has been written about legal writing in the past few years, and even though legal writing is not always taught well in law school, this book provides readers with a brief overview of effective legal writing.
For many lawyers and law students, legal research and writing is a bad memory of first-year law school since, despite the efforts of dedicated law librarians, most law school deans in Canada do not devote enough attention to legal research and writing. For first-time legal researchers, finding relevant cases and legislation can be difficult; ensur-
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ing that a particular case or statute has not been reversed or amended can be seemingly impossible for the uninitiated (it is not). Finding and drafting relevant and effective court documents and other law-related documents poses its own challenges. While the introduction of computer technology has in many cases improved access to legal information, computer technology also introduces the spectre of "information overload" and the danger of being bogged down with too much information. The need now is to be able to effectively sift through this mass of information to distil the particular information relevant to the question being researched.
This book - aimed at lawyers, law students, paralegals, judges, law librarians, and members of the public - seeks to explain the practical skills needed for print and online legal research and for legal writing. It provides a current and comprehensive look at the topic, consolidating information on legal research and writing into one handy, easy-to-use resource. This chapter introduces legal research and writing by discussing the following topics: (i) the importance of legal research and writing literacy to the legal profession, (ii) basic legal research techniques and resources, (iii) recovery of online research costs, (iv) legal citation, and (v) copyright issues affecting legal research and writing.
There should be no need to argue the importance of legal research and writing, but considering the short shrift it is often given in law school, it is understandable that some lawyers may not regard legal research as important as other skills, such as advocacy and negotiation. In fact, much has been written on the...
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