Michigan Legal Research

The primary audience for this book is first-year law students but also includes practitioners, paralegals, and college students, who need to become familiar with researching Michigan resources. The text comprehensively covers the sources of Michigan law and gives strategies for effective and efficient research of Michigan legal issues. It is supplemented with information regarding legal research in the federal system. It has numerous charts and screen shots of resources to help the reader visualize and better understand the material. It addresses the authoritative value of the legal sources and includes brief discussions of legal analysis to demonstrate the intersection between the process of research and writing. It also gives a method for systematically keeping track of the research process.

Several tools have been added to this edition to enhance the reader's learning of the material. Each chapter starts with "The Big Picture" to give the overarching concepts covered in that chapter. Readers can keep these concepts in mind while assimilating the details. "Added Advice" boxes have been expanded. They give information, which the author has learned from her students in 25 years of teaching legal research and writing, that has helped students with a particular topic. There are also comprehension questions that test whether the reader understood several related topics just read. These questions have been transferred to note cards, which are public through Brainscape. Lastly, throughout the book, information from earlier chapters is reintroduced and related to the current material as a way to reinforce learning of that information through spaced repetition.