Research Strategy

Strategy: A careful plan or method especially for achieving an end.

Assignment Clarification Checklist

• How will your product be used - Why does your supervisor want to know the information
  
• When does your supervisor need the product and how does your work fit into a larger deadline
  
• Is there a research strategy or a particular research tool that your supervisor can recommend for the project
  
• Is the research limited to one jurisdiction
  
• How much time does the supervisor want expended on the project
  
• Does the supervisor want any of the raw research materials (cases, statutes, regulations, etc.) you relied on
  
• Does the supervisor have a particular length in mind for the product
  
• If you have additional questions once you have started the project, will your supervisor be available to answer them
  

Goal is Research that is:

• Correct
  
• Comprehensive
  
• Credible
  
• Cost-effective
  

Research Strategy

• Brainstorm for Terms
  
  • Identify and analyze the facts
    
    • Who, what, where, when
      
    • TARP Rule
      
      • Thing or subject matter
        
      • Cause of Action or ground of defense
        
      • Relief sought
        
      • Parties involved
        
  • Determine the legal issues to be researched
    
    • Classify problem into general subject area
      
    • Begin to narrow question
      
• Choose a jurisdiction Location of dispute
  
  • State or Federal
    
    • If Federal, what Circuit
      
    • If State, what regional reporters and digest
      
• Get an overview of the subject
  
  • Strategy depends on familiarity with general subject and specific topics
  • Learn basic principles and vocabulary
    
  • Consult Secondary Sources
    
  • Outline issues
    
• Search for legal authority
  
  • Organize, plan and record
    
  • Case-finding tools
    
    • Narrative descriptions
      
    • Digests and annotations
      
    • Online research
      
  • Working with a subject
    
    • Subject index
      
  • Working from a known case
    
    • Table of Cases
      
    • Headnotes
      
    • Citators
      
  • Working from a known statutes
    • Annotated Code
      
  • Read primary authorities
    
    • Finding tools don't fully represent content of primary authority
      
    • Primary authority can act as further finding tools
      
• Update
  
  • Pocket parts
    
  • Supplements
    
  • Citators
    
  • Online Research
    
• When to stop
  
  • Repetition of citations (Use independent research tools to avoid appearance of repetition)
    
  • Absence of new information
    
  • Arriving at an answer
    
  • Research cost exceeds its expected benefit
    

Secondary Sources

Encyclopedias

• Finding Tools Provide a broad overview of an area of law
  
• Describe the law, but do not critique the law or suggest legal reforms
  
• Two National Encyclopedias American Jurisprudence, Second Edition
  
  • American Jurisprudence
    
  • Corpus Juris Secundum
    
  • West's Encyclopedia of American Law - Library Database
    

Treatises

• Comprehensive book or set of books on a particular subject
  
• Commentary
  
• Cites to cases, statutes, law reviews, and forms
  
• Law Library Catalog - Library
  
• Thomson Reuters (West) Bookstore
  
• Lexis Bookstore
  
• Amazon
  
• Barnes and Noble
  
• Bloomberg BNA - Looseleafs, treatises, reports, journals and newsletters - Library Database
  

American Law Reports

• Provide in-depth coverage of a specific or narrow issue
  
• Articles authored primarily by practicing attorneys Publisher Information - A.L.R. Homepage
  
• Westlaw American Law Reports - ALR Index
  
• Federal Topics
  
  • A.L.R. Fed 1969 to 2005
    
  • A.L.R. Fed, 2d 2005 to date
    
• State Topics
  
  • A.L.R. 3d 1965 - 1980
    
  • A.L.R. 4th 1980 - 1991
    
  • A.L.R. 5th 1992 to 2005
    
  • A.L.R. 6th 2006 to present
    

Legal Periodicals

• Describe, analyze and comment on current state of law
  
• In-depth articles
  

Legal Periodical Indexes

• LegalTrac - Library Database
  
  • 1980 to present
    
• Index to Legal Periodicals - Library Database
  
  • 1908 to present
    

Legal Periodicals Full Text

• HeinOnline - Library Database
  

Law Reviews

• Denver Law Review
  

• University of Colorado Law Review
  

Bar Association Journals and Legal Newspapers and Newsletters

• Colorado Lawyer
  

Restatements

• Seek to unify the common law on a national basis
  

• Written in rule form with explanations
  

West's Restatements and Principles of the Law  

• Products Liability Restatements
  

• Restatement of the Law-Agency  
  

• Restatement of the Law-Conflict of Laws
  

• Restatement of the Law-Contracts  
  

• Restatement of the Law-Judgments  
  

• Restatement of the Law-Property
  

• Restatement of the Law-Restitution
  

• Restatement of the Law-Security and Suretyship and Guaranty
  

• Restatement of the Law-The Foreign Relations Law of the United States
  

• Restatement of the Law-The Law Governing Lawyers
  

• Restatement of the Law-Torts
  

• Restatement of the Law-Trusts
  

• Restatement of the Law-Unfair Competition
  

Restatements: American Law Institute

Bloomberg Law

Justice is open to everyone in the same way as the Ritz Hotel. 
~Judge Sturgess ~

research strategy & Secondary Sources

professor of the practice of law
university of Denver Sturm College of LaW

FACULTY PAGE

When you steal from one author, it's plagiarism;
if you steal from many, it's research.
~ Wilson Mizner ~ 1876-1933 Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 15th Edition

Debra Austin, JD, PhD