Getting Ready to Clerk: Resources and Tips for a Successful Summer Associate Research Experience
Legal research may be only part of your extended audition as a summer associate or law clerk, but the way you conduct this fundamental lawyering skill is sure to be scrutinized and measured by the hiring organization's specific standards:
- Learn your employer's work culture, resources and expectations. What services and support staff are available to you? Get to know the library staff and the collection resources. What electronic subscriptions can you use, and are there any restrictions or usage preferences you should be aware of? Get a sense of the work environment and a thorough understanding of firm policies and procedures. ASK QUESTIONS! ASK FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS! ASK FOR FEEDBACK! See Tips for Summer Associates - A Digest of Great Ideas
- Be prepared for a variety of work assignments and to use a variety of research skills. Typical research projects might include:
- Practice cost effective research: LexisNexis and Westlaw are not free in the practice world as they have been in law school.(See examples of 2008 undiscounted prices for several files/services. Also see Computing Westlaw Costs example.) Examine your research habits, and retrain yourself to search with cost efficiencies in mind:
- Learn the law of your jurisdiction: If your clerkship is in Ohio, make sure you are acquainted with Ohio's major primary and secondary resources. See our Ohio Legal Research Guide . Are there jurisdiction specific citation formats you haven't encountered before? See, for example, the citation format required by the Ohio Supreme Court: Ohio Manual of Citations (Internet Edition) and Revisions to the Ohio Manual of Citations and take a look at Ohio Public Domain Cite Power Point.
- Seek out Attorney Work Product –Identifying specific attorney work product may be the end goal of the research assignment, or a fruitful starting place for ideas and possible arguments supporting similar issues. Get acquainted with:
Dockets and other kinds of filings See Resources for Online Court Dockets
Firm Brief and Memoranda Banks - the internal work product of your employer
Commercial Brief and Motion Banks - Find Briefs on Westlaw (for example BRIEF-ALL, SCT-BRIEF-ALL, CTA-BRIEF, STATE--BRIEF-ALL, as well as topical brief collections) and Lexis (for example, BRFMOT , FDMTBR, OHMTBR , as well as Briefs, Motions & Pleadings by Practice Area). On the Internet, see shared legal document cites, such as :JDSupra ; Scribd; DocStoc
Legislative histories: See the Law Library's Legislative History Research Guide for a review of the resources and components of typical state and Ohio legislative histories
Administrative law research: Know the importance of regulations and administrative decision making in state and federal law. See our Administrative Law resource guide for a refresher on the essentials
Fifty state surveys: Collecting or updating published surveys of the legal status of particular issues in all or several states. Some of the work you need may already be started for you: see, for example, Lexis Fifty-State Legislative and Regulatory Surveys; Westlaw 50 State Surveys (SURVEYS); Fifty-State Charts in CCH Databases ( CCH Business and Finance ; CCH Health and Human Resources) . Published materials such as Tort Law Desk Reference, A Fifty-State Compendium
Research on procedural issues in support of litigation: The glamour may be in the unique facts or legal issues raised in a case, but success may turn on the more mundane procedural issues such as jurisdiction, forum, statutes of limitations, notice, and deadlines. Know where to go to research civil and criminal procedure questions. See our Civil Procedure Resource Guide and Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Resource Guide.
Pro bono projects: See, for example ADL Program on civil rights issues
Researching and writing on issues to support attorney professional publication projects : Your assigning attorney may be an author or editor of a practice treatise, or involved in writing for professional publications for service, networking or marketing goals. You will help minimize the impact on the attorney's billable hours if you bone up on skills discussed in our Scholarly Writing and Citation Checking resource guides.
Non legal research in support of ongoing litigation or client transactions. See, for example the wealth of company information available in corporate filings on EDGAR/IDEA. Learn how to find information about people - Sue Altmeyer's resource guide, Public Records and People Finders, explores in depth the kinds of data you can discover about people and entities from public records, as well as fee paid and other sources for locating people. See also Steven Anderson's Competitive Intelligence - A Selective Resource Guide, particularly Selected Online People Tracking Sources, on LLRX.
Start with free sources -books in the library, nonbillable subscriptions, or reliable web resources. Check relevant formbooks, practice guides, treatises and checklists. See our Forms and Practice Materials resource guide for examples of general and Ohio specific materials. See the Law Library's Internet Legal Research: Legal Resources on the Web and Subscription Services Beyond Lexis and Westlaw and Web Searching resource guides
See our Law Library's Guide Efficient and Cost Effective Legal Research for an explanation of LexisNexis and Westlaw pricing models, and tips for making best use of the either system's features for narrowing and refining your searches. Take advantage of the cost saving tips the systems offer as well, such as LexisNexis Cost Effective Research Strategies,Cost Effective Research Tips - Westlaw and Westlaw's Prepare to Practice training.
Be aware of your alternatives: If your employer offers access to one, but not both, of the major providers, or both, but one with a more restrictive contract, make sure you can transition to the preferred system. See our LexisNexis and Westlaw Features Compared. Can you use Casemaker as part of your Ohio State Bar Association or Fastcase as part of your Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association memberships? Other lower cost services which your employer may expect you to use include Loislaw, Versuslaw (free to law students), and the newest player, Bloomberg Law. See Comparison Chart of Low Cost Databases.
JRN 3/2009; links checked 8/09