International Legal research guide

SUGGESTIONS FOR SELECTING YOUR LEGAL RESEARCH GUIDE TOPIC

STAGE ONE – Find a General Area of Law That Interests You

1. You will be spending a lot of time reading materials on whatever topic you select. Therefore, you should select a topic that relates to an area of law in which you:

1. might practice when you get out of law school; and/or

2. are personally interested for whatever reason; and/or

3. are writing a research paper for another class.

1. Browse through the ASIL “100 Ways” and “50 Ways” documents in the electronic readings. See if you can find any topics discussed there that interest you.

STAGE TWO – Read a Wide Variety of Materials That Relate to Your Chosen General Area of Law

1. Seek out relevant books/treatises, articles, subscription databases, and websites. Keep a log of what you read for later use.

1. Begin to think about the “guiding hypothetical fact scenario” that you will use for your research guide. In other words, evolve your interest “about” the general area of law into a “practical legal question” for a hypothetical “client” that your Legal Research Guide will address. Remember – you can adjust the fact scenario such that you will be able define the relevant legal question in whatever way that you wish, and however narrowly/broadly that you wish.

STAGE THREE – Develop Your “Guiding Hypothetical Fact Scenario” and Start Drafting Your Legal Research Guide Sooner Rather Than Later

1. To create an effective Legal Research Guide, your fact scenario should give rise to a legal issue that is narrow, but not so narrow that there is a clear “answer” – in other words, there should be enough leeway in your fact scenario that the “legal result” could come out either way depending on factors not addressed in your fact scenario.

1. Based on my past experience with students doing this project, I believe that it is better to err on the side of being too narrow but thoroughly covering the sources relevant to that narrowly-defined question than to be too broad and lacking enough focus to create a “practical” as opposed to an “academic” or “theoretical” research guide.

STAGE FOUR – Leave Yourself with Enough Time to Refine Your “Fact Scenario” and Your “Research Guide” As You Go Along So That They Match Up Well & Double-Check That Your Legal Research Guide Complies with the Directions for This Assignment

1. Students who procrastinate on this assignment until shortly before it is due often struggle with it. To make your Legal Research Guide ”work”, you are probably going to need to experiment and revise your specific “sub-topic” within a general area of law more than once.

1. The good news is that when you are done with this project, you will be an expert in the area of law that you have chosen, you will know who the nationally/internationally-renowned experts on it are, and you may have ideas for creating your own publishable work on your topic.

Suggested additional readings that may help you select your legal research guide topic or utilize the knowledge that you will have gained by creating your legal research guide to create a publishable paper:

Eugene Volokh, Academic Legal Writing: Law Review Articles, Student Notes, Seminar Papers, and Getting on Law Review (start with page 9: “The Initial Step: Choosing a Claim”), KF 250.V65 2007 (Law at Reserve).

Heather Meeker, Stalking the Golden Topic: A Guide to Locating and Selecting Topics for Legal Research Papers, 1996 Utah L. Rev. 917; available in Hein Online, Lexis and Westlaw.

2