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© Debra Austin, PhD, JD |
Advanced Legal Research |
| Somewhere,
something incredible is waiting to be known. |
University of Denver Sturm College of Law |
| Home Course Materials Administrative Sources Cases & Digests Library Databases Online Resources Practice Materials Research Strategy Secondary Sources Statutes Technology Training |
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Your ALR Assignments will be weighted as follows:
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Career Vision StatementLegal Research PlanYou will explore the resources on the Required Resources list and create a Research Plan designed to guide the research for the Paper Topic you select. Your Research Plan must be produced in Word and submitted to me via email attachment to daustin@law.du.edu. The subject line of the email should read: ALR Research Plan. The document should be named FirstnameLastnameResearchPlan.doc (.docx is acceptable as well). You may submit your project early. The goal of this assignment is to create a Research Plan for the Paper you will write on your chosen topic. You must do research in all the Required Resources. You must include all the Required Research Plan Components. You may include additional resources. Anything you would like to do to enhance your project beyond the scope of the assignment is perfectly acceptable, but will not be considered during the grading process. For each resource, you must determine the appropriate format for summarizing/citing to the type of information that is available on your topic. At a minimum, please include appropriate titles, authors, and cites to sections or page numbers. Bluebook citation format is not required. If you find no information in a required resource, you do not need to include it in your project. I will assume you found no relevant information if the resource does not appear in your project. However, it you leave something out of your project and I locate relevant information in that source, a point deduction will be the result. Required Research Plan Components
Research Plan Required Resources
Research Plan PresentationYou will do a short (5-7 minute) presentation summarizing your Research Plan results. You are encouraged to utilize images and a theme to tell your research "story." You may use PowerPoint or Prezi to create your presentation and you will bring your presentation to class on your presentation day on a USB drive. Presentation Components
How to Conquer Fear of Public Speaking How to Speak in Public without Fear Never Fear Public Speaking Again Take Public Speaking Tips from Abraham Lincoln Toastmasters International: 10 Tips for Public Speaking Research Paper Students will select a topic, within the Practice Area of focus for the semester, on which to write a 10-12 page paper. The paper may be double-spaced. The Research Plan assignment will provide an outline of useful sources in which to conduct research for the paper. Students will submit a First Draft, which should be of a high quality. Students will receive feedback from me and will then submit a Final Revision of their paper. This paper will satisfy the Upper Level Writing Requirement. Your paper must be produced in Word. Papers are required to be submitted to me via email attachment to daustin@law.du.edu. The subject line of the email should read: ALR Paper. The document should be named FirstnameLastnamePaper.doc (.docx is acceptable as well). You may submit your paper early. Library Purchasing Plan The goal of this assignment is to present information on your chosen area of practice regarding the applicable legal research resources necessary to practice. Information on publishers and pricing are required for each Required Resource listed below. You may include additional resources. Anything you would like to do to enhance your project beyond the scope of the assignment is perfectly acceptable, but will not be considered during the grading process. You can use the ALR web page to help you. Many of the Required Resources have a Publisher Information link in the topical outlines on the ALR page. This will link you directly to the publisher book store and provide both publisher and pricing information. Resources that are unique to your project include treatises, looseleafs, and legal periodicals. For these resources, you could:
With regard to legal periodicals, try to find the subscription price for 1 or 2 for your practice area. You would likely not subscribe to a general law review published by a school to keep you updated in your practice area. Try to focus on topic specific legal periodicals and bar journals that you would want to review each month. LawTrio is a good source for finding legal newsletters. You will include either a Westlaw or Lexis online price plan. The representatives will give you ballpark pricing during the in-class presentations and that is acceptable for inclusion in your project. You will include resource, publisher, and pricing information for each of the Required Resources. You will begin with an introduction to your project. You will write a conclusion about which resources you would purchase and why, the total cost of your selected purchases, and which format they would be in (print, WL-Lexis-Loislaw, free Internet). You must do the analysis (get the publishers and pricing for each resource on the Required Resources list) in order to make a conclusion. You must get information on all the resources on the Required Resources list so that you gain an understanding of resource costs that you could face in any number of practices after graduation from law school. The conclusion is the most important component of this project. You can organize your Library Purchasing Plan using the 4 major resource groups: Primary Authority, Secondary Sources, Practice Materials, and Online. Formatting for this project will be fairly simple. For example, you may use the outline format for you resource lists:
Library Purchasing Plan Components
Library Purchasing Plan Required Resources Print Pricing for:
Ethical Issues Paper You will identify a potential ethical issue within your self-selected practice area, conduct research, and write a short paper describing the issue and possible ways for an attorney to deal with it. Your paper will be 2-4 pages and doublespaced. Your paper must be produced in Word. Papers are required to be submitted to me via email attachment to daustin@law.du.edu. The subject line of the email should read: ALR Ethics Paper. The document should be named FirstnameLastnameEthicsPaper.doc (.docx is acceptable as well). You may submit your paper early. Final Presentation You will do a short (5-7 minute) final presentation. Your final presentation may cover your Research Paper topic, your Ethical Issues Paper, or your Final Reflection Paper. You may use PowerPoint or Prezi to create your presentation and you will bring your presentation to class on your presentation day on a USB drive. Presentation Components
Final Reflection Paper Please describe three significant legal research resources covered inthe Advanced Legal Research course and how they will impact your development of legal research strategies in practice, once you have graduated and no longer have Lexis and Westlaw on tap for free. You should discuss how our research preferences, various resource formats, and resource costs will help you make determinations about formulating future legal research strategies. Please use 3 to 6 paragraphs to address this question. Please discuss three significant things that you learned or improved in the Advanced Legal Research course and how your new knowledge and skills will impact your future work in internships, clerkships, and/or practice. Please use 3 to 6 paragraphs to address this question. Your paper must be produced in Word. Papers are required to be submitted to me via email attachment to daustin@law.du.edu. The subject line of the email should read: ALR Reflection. The document should be named FirstnameLastnameReflection.doc (.docx is acceptable as well). You may submit your paper early. Late Work For each week or portion of a week that any written assignment is overdue, I will deduct 10% from the assignment score. For every administrative requirement that is disregarded (such as labeling your email or naming your document), I will deduct 5% from the assignment score. I will not accept submission of assignments beyond 2 weeks after the assignment due date and the student will be awarded 0% for the assignment if not submitted by this late submission deadline. If you fail to show up for a presentation, I will deduct 20% from your presentation score. You are responsible to contact me to reschedule your presentation. No presentations will be scheduled after 2 weeks from the 1st presentation date on the syllabus or after the last day of class and if a student has failed to give a presentation by that date, the student will be awarded 0% points for the presentation. Extraordinary Circumstances I reserve the right to amend any course policy for a student who experiences extraordinary circumstances during the semester and communicates these circumstances to me in a timely fashion, co-creates a plan with me, and completes the agreed upon plan. The best way to reach me is via email. Grade
Curve The curve in ALR is based
upon a 100 point scale. The scores for all written assignments and presentations are added together for each student.
All the student score totals for the section are sorted from highest
point total to lowest point total. Law school policy specifies 2
requirements as to the curve: the median (middle score of the group)
must be a B and the mean (average of all scores) must be a B or
3.0. Potential
Practice Areas
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