On-Line Legal Research Workshops

Frederick B. Jonassen, Barry University School of law

Abstract

Like riding a bicycle, playing tennis, or driving a car, legal research is a skill, and like any other skill it is learned by doing and not by listening to a lecture, though lectures are indispensable for introducing the skill. The mental processes applied in electronic legal research may differ from those applied to book legal research, but because both electronic and book research are skills, a guided workshop in electronic legal research may be based on similar principles to that underlying a workshop in book legal research with appropriate modifications.

The aspects of the electronic legal workshop proposed here are as follows: (1) scheduling as soon after the introductory lecture and treasure hunt exercise as possible; (2) guided questions which both lead students through a process, but which also give them freedom and independence to make choices; (3) a realistic research problem which requires reflection about what has been found as opposed to simply finding an answer, but which is not as complex as the research problem for the typical open memo; (4) work in small groups or pairs; (5) immediate discussion and feedback on the strategies employed in the research exercise.