How do you teach lawyers to do legal research? How do you impart a lifetime's experience, your knowledge of resources, legal information and its organisation? Anyone who has taught legal research skills will have grappled with how best to explain the techniques that are second nature to librarians and make them relevant to lawyers.
Peter Clinch in his handbook has produced a publication which he believes is the first handbook of legal research information specifically designed for practitioners working in the UK. This is publicised as a practical “how-to” work designed to be dipped into and not read cover to cover, with hints and tips highlighted in handy text boxes and it is a guide to both print and online resources. It is aimed at practitioners, solicitors, barristers and professional support lawyers without access to a law librarian or information officer.
The handbook is divided into three sections, followed by appendices and indices. Part A, Before Touching a Keyboard or Opening a Book covers problem identification and analysis, research strategy, how to derive keywords, followed by advice on how to select the best sources and formats: print or electronic, with advice on evaluating web information and cross-checking where possible. Part B, Selecting the Right Source and Using it Effectively deals with law encyclopaedias nationally and worldwide; primary sources: legislation and cases, treaties and conventions; procedural law, legal definitions, legislative intent, commentary, tracking legislative proposals and lastly professional libraries for lawyers. Part C, Presenting the Results Effectively covers legal writing guides, legal style manuals and tools for citation checking and updating. The three sections are supplemented by extensive appendices, listing abbreviations for Acts and other publications; a glossary of legal terms used in the UK, EU, US and international law; excerpts from the Practice Directions relating to legal research, including tribunals; a table of database commands, and a popular names index to UK cases and EU legislation and cases (with acknowledgments to Justis).
James Mullan has contributed Chapter 14 Business Information; Chapter 15 Information about People and Personalities connected with the Law and Appendix 6 Buying Legal Information. James writes from the perspective of working in a city law firm and his contributions are well organised, current and informative.
Is a handbook a suitable format for the task in hand? I found the layout mildly irritating – being referred back to sections and told I had to read a previous paragraph before I could start on what I really wanted to read. There was also quite a bit of repetition. The indices cover publication titles and databases, but not subjects, so dipping in and out to find what you need is not always straightforward. Pepper and Hart research is in the Words and Phrases chapter, consultation papers are in a chapter after the one on tracking bills and there is a chapter entitled Lucky Dip with information that does not fit elsewhere. A book listing online sources with urls will go out of date quickly and all information here was correct as of November 2009, but to give the author his due, his mentions of developments, for example Justis's coverage of local acts has helped to keep the work lively. Some resources get quite dismissive treatment, for instance Bloomberg Law, and with others, e.g. Lexis Library he makes inconsistent assumptions on which resources are included with subscriptions.
Will the work reach its intended audience of legal practitioners? I am not sure that it will, as its emphasis on bibliographic descriptions, summaries of loose-leaf or encyclopaedia arrangements and citation specifications are all librarian preoccupations and at times I even had the feeling I was looking at content lifted from library “how to guides”. Lawyers need information on their practice areas, information about their specialised associations, journals and blogs that they rely on to network and keep up-to-date with their peers. There is no information in here on databases such as Complinet, EGi, Kluwer, no mention of precedents, model agreements, checklists, no lists of associations in the indices and only the briefest mention of blogs and RSS feeds. Cutting costs and doing more with less is how we all have to get by these days and free RSS feeds from journals, blogs, and law firm newsletters are all essential to keep lawyers up-to-date and informed of legal developments. Even Twitter does not get a mention either in the Updating known law section, though this was my quickest route recently for updated publication information on the much delayed Localism Bill.
However, Peter Clinch's more natural audience – librarians and information officers, especially those involved in trainee training, will be delighted to see a new work and will find a wealth of information here to guide them. This is especially so if they are new to the legal sector or have not previously taught legal research. His advice on looking at the stages involved, such as identifying the facts, analysing the problem and area of law and putting this into a context and jurisdiction is excellent. He stresses the importance of recording, giving advice on note taking and, most importantly, knowing when to stop and how to write up research. It is a shame he does not take this one step further and cover any aspect of capturing the research or saving research into know-how systems.
The handbook is excellent value for money, an affordable addition to any collection and Peter Clinch has been more than generous in passing on his own knowledge and sharing his own skills with future generations of law librarians.
