Legal Research for the New Millennials

Among the several articles included in the newly posted Lewis & Clark Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series, part of the SSRN Legal Scholarship Network, is Think [And Practice] Like a Lawyer: Legal Research for the New Millennials. The authors are Prof. Aliza B. Kaplan, Lewis & Clark Law School (and former Brooklyn Law School Associate Professor of Legal Skills) and Access Services/Reference Librarian and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law Kathleen N. Darvil, Brooklyn Law School. The abstract of the article reads:

It is time to heed the calls for legal education reform. In our changing economy, new attorneys need to be properly trained in law school to be competent at providing effective legal services for their employers and clients. Law schools must remain open to and interested in legal reform; they must partner with practitioners to incorporate more practical skills into the law school curriculum. Updating how we teach legal research by making it accord more with how attorneys actually conduct and use legal research in practice will help accomplish this and will also more actively engage our Millennial students. There is no question that making some timely changes to legal research instruction would better prepare new attorneys to be competent practicing lawyers and would be a win-win for students, law schools and employers.

The full article appears in Vol. 8, 2011 of Legal Communication & Rhetoric, the Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors.