ALL-SIS Legal Research Roundtable Meeting

The Roundtable on Legal Research met on Tuesday, July 18, 2000, from 12:15-1:30. The 29 participants present had an intense, informative, and wide-ranging discussion on many topics related to teaching an Advanced Legal Research course. The goal of the meeting, as set by ALL-SIS Chair Tory Trotta, was to build on the momentum started in the Roundtable held at the 1999 AALL Annual Meeting as well as to develop ideas for how ALL-SIS could fill a leadership role within AALL on the teaching of Advanced Legal Research.

CREATING AN ALL-SIS LEADERSHIP ROLE:

Faye Jones, Roundtable leader, opened the discussion by asking participants to present ideas on how to create a leadership role for ALL-SIS. Here is a synopsis of the ideas suggested:

  1. Hold a workshop for teachers of legal research classes where syllabi could be compared and information shared on what was effective.
  2. Present workshops for librarians on how to be effective teachers.
  3. Librarians should take advantage of the opportunity to write interactive lessons for CALI, including "Lecturettes," 10-45 minute short lectures, and "Lessonettes." Kit Kreilick will distribute information on the listserv on the CALI contest which carries a $1,000 award and publication for the best entries.
  4. ALL-SIS could sponsor a program or a two-part program at an AALL meeting on the theory and application of active learning and teaching adults.
  5. Develop a forum for exchanging effective techniques such as experiments in student participation in Advanced Legal Research classes through leading classes or teaching in-class segments.

Sara Robbins asked that unique or unusually effective ideas on teaching be passed along to her in preparation for a text on Advanced Legal Research which she plans to work on during her sabbatical next year.

GAINING APPROVAL TO TEACH A COURSE:

The discussion then turned to how to gain approval to teach an Advanced Legal Research course since such a course is not offered at all schools. The following is a summary of the ideas presented on how to gain approval based on the experiences of participants:

  1. Offer a half a semester, 1 credit course on a subject such as International and Foreign law; make sure it is targeted but still evaluated. From this beginning, the course grew into a 2 credit course and became a regular part of the curriculum.
  2. Base your course proposal on the large number of student requests for classes and gear offerings to students in subject specialty journal or concentration.

Look for support in a forthcoming article by Ann Hemmens, UW, who is updating Blair Kaufman's article on Advanced Legal Research course for her MLS thesis.

OUR SUCCESSES:

The Roundtable then spent some time discussing "What have our successes been?" Here are some things to lift your spirits on a slow day:

  1. Doing a legal research class that was state-specific for New Jersey was a winner with students.
  2. Use of PowerPoint cut down on boring readings and engaged students more.
  3. Students prepared their final research guide in Web format.
  4. Critical thinking was encouraged by ungraded assignments in which students evaluated a law-related Web site or print resources.
  5. Many participants find pathfinders a tried and true tool.
  6. Some schools are posting the best ones on the Law Library Web site and cataloging them in the OPAC for access by others. See http://judge.valpo.edu/library/libpubs.html then link within that area.
  7. Use TWEN or Virtual Classroom.
  8. A "Web Site of the Week" Contest with chocolate bars to student winners was very popular with students. Groundwork was laid by giving out materials on Web site evaluation.

COURSE CONSTRUCTION:

A discussion followed on student feedback on course construction. A common complaint of students is that Advanced Legal Research courses are lots of work for too little credit. As a result, some faculty have gone away from "treasure hunts" to basing the grade on a major pathfinder at the end of the semester with a series of smaller projects in between which were submitted and evaluated separately from the final project. Suggestions for meeting student needs included:

  1. Provide a checklist for grading criteria when the project is assigned.
  2. Asking to raise the course to 3 credits has been effective at some schools.
  3. Conduct a needs assessment at the beginning of the class and give that same assessment to the students at the end of the class to give them feedback on their progress.

CONCLUSION:

The Roundtable returned to the original topic of how to develop a leadership role for ALL-SIS in teaching Advanced Legal Research and made these suggestions:

  1. Participate in developing training programs in law firms.
  2. Put useful materials up on Web sites and publicize them.
  3. Put more content on the ALL-SIS home page and promote it as a central site for Advanced Legal Research course and teaching information.
  4. Update the Advanced Legal Research syllabi site created by Katherine Tooley and place syllabi on the ALL-SIS site.

Watch for new materials on the ALL-SIS home page to be posted by David Burch. These developments will also be covered in the ALL-SIS Newsletter. Faye Jones, Roundtable Leader, will create an email address list for all participants to allow more communication. (I hope to have this done by the end of September.) Please send me an email if you were unable to attend but would like to have your email address included. Finally, if I left out a great idea that was mentioned at the Roundtable, please let me know so I can pass it along to the participants or put it in another Newsletter article. Thanks to all of the participants in the Roundtable for their enthusiasm, professionalism and commitment to the teaching of Advanced Legal Research!

Faye Jones,
Legal Research Roundtable