Legal Research Scavenger Hunt Workbook

To view examples from this book for course adoption consideration, please contact bhall@cap-press.com.

This new regional workbook series provides practical assignments on both the federal and state levels to complement most research books on the market. Each workbook begins with a federal section with exercises that give students practice researching cases, statutes, regulations, and procedures. The second part of each workbook will feature state-specific exercises for that region. For example, the North Central Region includes state-specific exercises for Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. State exercises include those on statutes, codes, regulations, court rules, and case law for each state.

The regional divisions correspond with the states represented by AAfPE regions –– North Central, Pacific, South Central, Northeast and Southeast.

Before beginning the assignments, the students will need to review the research text they are currently using or have previously used in the basic research course.

Chapters One through Ten contain exercises from the many different types of legal resources with which students must be familiar to work in the legal environment. The chapters contain one or more assignments regarding various research topics and resources so that the instructor can tailor the course to the primary text, style, format, and/or the course syllabus. Most of these exercises require the student to utilize the library to locate the resources required to answer the questions in each section. This workbook is written so that the student will have more "hands-on" time with the written legal works. The instructor will provide the student with specifics as to which assignments may be completed using proprietary legal search engines and which must be done by visiting the law library. Chapters Six and Ten provide the student with specific exercises for various types of on-line research, both free and proprietary. Chapter Eleven contains legal memoranda assignments. The students will prepare one or more, at the direction of the instructor. These assignments require the use of the knowledge and skills students have acquired by completing the exercises in the previous chapters as well as the primary textbook used in the course. The scenarios provided in the chapter all based on different types of law. The student will need to research the numerous issues in each scenario and then must write a memorandum to the attorney (instructor). The Memorandum must contain citations for the case law, statutes, rules, and/or regulations that the student has located regarding the various legal issues and topics. The instructor should inform the students whether they are to use the IRAC or some other method of preparing the Memorandum.

State-specific exercises round out the workbook. The citations provided are consistent with the Bluebook style. The instructor will advise the student of which citation style manual should be used for this workbook so that it is consistent with the requirements of the school, local court rule, and/or the primary textbook used by the student. The assignments and exercises in this workbook are meant to hone the students' research skills and assist them in becoming more familiar with the numerous legal resources, and how to use them more efficiently and effectively.

A teacher's manual/test bank pdf is available upon adoption. Please contact bhall@cap-press.com for more information.