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May 18, 2024
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2022-2023 Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
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LEGS 102 - Legal Research
PREREQUISITES: LEGS 101 - Introduction to Legal Studies
PROGRAM: Legal Studies and Paralegal Studies
CREDIT HOURS MIN: 3
LECTURE HOURS MIN: 3
DATE OF LAST REVISION: Spring, 2020
Legal Research introduces the student to legal research resources. These resources could include constitutions, statutory codes and annotations, administrative codes and registers, cases reporters and digests, legal secondary sources, including legal encyclopedias, treatises, legal periodicals, practice manuals and form books. It also introduces students to the various finding tools for accessing information in these resources. Instruction is also delivered on proper legal citation form, citation services, and research strategy. Projects include a series of graded law library research assignments teaching the student how to use this variety of materials to research both primary and secondary legal authorities using methodologies for research in either print or online sources, and updating material to insure the most up-to-date research possible.
MAJOR COURSE LEARNING OBJECTIVES: Upon successful completion of this course the student will be expected to:
- Identify and locate primary legal authority, including constitutions, statutes, administrative materials, and appellate court decisions.
- Explain and distinguish between primary and secondary authority.
- Explain and distinguish between mandatory and persuasive authority and determine which legal material should be presented to a court.
- Describe the relationship between trial and appellate courts and how precedent is used in deciding cases.
- Locate statutes and their related case annotations in a federal annotated statutory set or an Indiana annotated code set.
- Differentiate between official and unofficial publications of primary authority.
- Formulate proper citation forms for primary and secondary authorities.
- Validate legal authority through use of a citation service.
- Identify and locate secondary legal sources such as legal encyclopedia, legal treatises, practice manuals, and form books.
- Discuss the role of free web-based sources of legal material and non-legal material.
- Integrate both free sources and subscription sources into the process of legal research.
- Examine the role a paralegal in legal research conforming to the Indiana rules of professional conduct.
COURSE CONTENT: Topical areas of study include -
- Print and/or electronic law library resources including legal encyclopedias, statutory sets - federal and state, reporters and digests for accessing appellate court decisions, federal and state regulatory systems, practice manuals and form books.
- Legal citation format, most specifically dealing with Indiana and federal citation format.
- Research assignments finding primary and secondary authorities.
- Web based materials, including both free and subscription services, to access secondary and primary authorities.
Course Addendum - Syllabus (Click to expand)
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