Teaching Advanced Legal Research: Philosophy and Context

Abstract

Is there a philosophy that grounds the teaching of advanced legal research (AIR)? Can a coherent identi~y be found? The authors draw upon the experience of twen~y-jive years of teaching AIR to large numbers of students to puzzle this question out. Are we teaching a mechanical skill? Are we offering a course in jurisprudence? Are we sim#y forcing the students to teach themselves? Has the information revolution changed the whole enterprise? Basing the discussion on the context of legal information, the students, and the law, the authors try to find an answer to these fundamental questions. KEYWORDS teaching legal research, teaching, advanced legal research THE SETUP Writing an article that sets forth a philosophy of teaching Advanced Legal Research (ALR) is a presumptuous exercise. Articulating a philosophy of law librarianship itself has been enough of a challenge. 2 At least the field of law librarianship has the ethos of a profession with its own professional association that grapples with standards and issues of identity. While there is a rich literature about teaching legal research, complete with a healthy subset of writings about teaching ALR, 3 there is no developed professional cohort. There is no center to the enterprise. Each person who offers a course in ALR may have her own ideas and concepts as to what she is doing. In this age of empirical research, we would not presume to venture a guess as to what others think they are doing when they teach an ALR course without the use of a well-designed survey instrument.