Advanced Legal Research Courses: A Survey of ABA-Accredited Law Schools

Regardless of how long one has been in the legal profession, each day constitutes a unique opportunity to learn something new about the monster called legal research. 1 Background Legal research training within the American law school curriculum today typically includes a first-year course devoted to instruction in legal research or both legal research and legal writing. 2 As writing often receives more attention than research, 3 the legal research skills of law school graduates are likely to suffer. The existence of poor research skills has been supported by surveys of law firm librarians working with law students and new associates. 4 The inadequacy of research skills creates a need for continued legal research instruction and with it the opportunity for law librarians to provide such instruction. The advanced legal research (ALR) course for second- and third-year law students, offered for academic credit and focusing primarily on legal research skills, provides such an avenue. The course is typically taught by a law librarian with legal research experience and up-to-date knowledge of resources who instructs students in the strategies of researching more complex legal issues and topics than those covered in the first-year course. Advanced legal research courses were reported in the library literature as early as the 1970s. 5 With the increasing complexity of legal research skills needed to survive in the legal marketplace and the apparent lack of research skills of recent law graduates, these advanced-level courses play an increasingly important role in the law students' ...