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Date: April 8th, 2009 7:00 PM Author: mint curious dilemma
and even if you can't cite to them, if they are well-written and/or well-reasoned and supported by helpful authority you can copy them. instant brief. takes about 20 minutes to purge the proprietary formatting. bill 4.7, 7.7, 6.6, 8.2, and 5.7 on non-consecutive days to research, draft, review/revise, and finalize memorandum of p. & a. i/s/o motion to whatever. about 15-grand of cash flow for the firm, at virtually no cost.
that's not research advice. it's career advice.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#11371695) |
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Date: October 26th, 2009 10:01 PM Author: cyan headpube
Date: April 8th, 2009 7:00 PM
Author: Renada Deshada obe
and even if you can't cite to them, if they are well-written and/or well-reasoned and supported by helpful authority you can copy them. instant brief. takes about 20 minutes to purge the proprietary formatting. bill 4.7, 7.7, 6.6, 8.2, and 5.7 on non-consecutive days to research, draft, review/revise, and finalize memorandum of p. & a. i/s/o motion to whatever. about 15-grand of cash flow for the firm, at virtually no cost.
that's not research advice. it's career advice.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#13094791)
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Date: February 21st, 2010 11:19 AM Author: Laughsome copper base
"that's not research advice. it's career advice."
TCR
We need to have more PRACTICAL advice on these boards.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#14188633) |
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Date: April 17th, 2010 11:42 AM Author: Frisky thriller library goyim
"Even if your firm pays a flatrate, they bill the client for what the usage charge would be."
That's extremely unethical. I've also never seen a firm that charges that way. How would I know? Simple. Legal research costs are recoverable as attorney's fees in some jurisdictions. I have seen fee applications from those jurisdictions. Westlaw will automatically allocate your usage across client IDs. How would I know? Simple. I've done fee applications that relied on the Westlaw reports.
"the so-called flat rate but the "flat rate" is actually usage based, determined by estimating usage based on past usage. running up a big bill means your next contract has a higher "flat" rate."
Not really. Those sorts of issues only pop up at fairly large firms, but they're already negotiating deals that, per person, are cheaper than normal anyway. And those firms and their clients aren't bitching about your use of ALLFEDS.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#14737310) |
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Date: April 8th, 2009 7:23 PM Author: Hideous mad-dog skullcap
Date: April 8th, 2009 6:59 PM
Author: Rudolph
When you have an issue - ALWAYS start with the law review & journal search. Find one good law review article and it will have all the cases you'll ever need. Just make sure they are still good law.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#11371897)
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Date: April 8th, 2009 7:03 PM Author: deep institution main people
I'm transactional, but if you just want to look up securities regulations or rules, this site is free and often faster/better-formatted than westlaw or lexis:
http://www.law.uc.edu/CCL/xyz/sldtoc.html
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#11371721) |
Date: April 8th, 2009 7:26 PM Author: yapping pit death wish
Here's one that attorneys fuck up all the time. If you're citing a case for a certain proposition, make sure it comes out your way on that issue.
For instance, say my opponent objects to some evidence as hearsay and I think it's a business record. There are like 1000 cases that set forth the basic test for the business record exception to the hearsay rule. Out of those 1000 cases, make sure you cite one that allows the evidence to be admitted. Otherwise a good opposing counsel will throw that back in your face.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#11371924) |
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Date: April 17th, 2010 11:47 AM Author: Frisky thriller library goyim
"Otherwise a good opposing counsel will throw that back in your face."
There's nothing "good" about that technique unless there's some other analysis from the case that bears on the case being litigated.
In fact, I'd say it's mostly retarded lawyers who argue against well established principles of law based on an irrelevant outcome.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#14737338) |
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Date: April 8th, 2009 10:42 PM Author: Confused tattoo
one time i saw a fellow student's take home exam sitting there in the printer tray. i was not going to take the 6-hr exam till the end of the exam period and she had apparently decided to take it on day 1. she was on law review too.
i was THIS close to snatching that fucker, taking it home and analyzing it to figure out what the exam questions were. but then i thought better of it and pussied out and decided to be a good samaritan (for real). proudest A- of my life :)
(of course, this wasn't a 1L course; if it was a 1L course, i probably would have cheated)
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#11373686) |
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Date: April 9th, 2009 1:58 AM Author: Turquoise Multi-colored Piazza Clown
Yeah, they teach you this if you go to Westlaw training, but most people just dick around on the internet so they don't learn it.
Okay, let's say that you want to figure out if some admissions system creates an unconstitutional quota system. All you care about is the narrow issue of how to define a "quota." You know the leading case on this is Grutter, so you look it up. That's fine--but next you need to know how lower courts have applied the quota definition from Grutter.
Many people either just click the flag icon or "citing references" and start at the time. So for Grutter, you'll bring up a bunch of cases that talk about what constitutes a "compelling interest" in addition to those mentioning quotas. Often there aren't many cases, so this works just fine, even if it's not the most efficient way to do it--but where you're reverse citing a prominent case that has multiple holdings, you're in trouble. You could spend all day sifting through cases that have absolutely no relevance to your issue.
At the bottom of the screen, there is a gray bar with a button that says "limit keycite display." Click that button. You will get several options for how to limit cases. Click on "headnotes," the second option.
The screen with show boxes for each headnote; let's say there are 20 for your case. Below those boxes, there will be text for each of those 20 headnotes, explaining what part of the holding they refer to. Select the boxes next to the relevant options (sometimes the text is nearly identical in a few headnotes, so you might select 4 or 5 for one topic).
After you've checked the boxes, hit the "apply" button on the left. Your search will now be limited to cases that describe your topic of interest.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#11375970) |
Date: April 9th, 2009 1:45 AM Author: Fragrant knife
I always thought that this was obvious, but it may not be. Start your initial search incredibly broad, like stupidly broad, and narrow it down from there. much harder to miss relevant cases this way.
Does anyone else work where you actually have to pull the physical reporters (ie. mostly state practice?) that's the fucking worst.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#11375849) |
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Date: February 21st, 2010 11:49 AM Author: Laughsome copper base
THIS
Is the fucking credited response.
You are better off scanning Law Reviews and ALR's then asking one of these people to search for you.
If the issue is REALLY difficult, they are going to be JUST AS CONFUSED as you were, except you have to spend 20 minutes of your life listening as they hit the same brick wall you did AN HOUR AGO!
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#14188800) |
Date: May 18th, 2009 9:49 PM Author: Insecure market
I was asked to research a federal issue and figure out the position a state agency was going to take. Google led me to an opinion by an agency of another state on the exact same issue that had just been issued like 2 days before. It was the position we wanted.
Using this, we went to the state agency before they even had a chance to think about it and we said "Hey, State X is doing Y" and they just agreed rather than research an opposing position
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#11768836) |
Date: May 22nd, 2009 2:36 AM Author: dead spot regret
di,sy(search term) -- searches synopsis and digest/headnotes
wp(search term) -- searches for definitions of term
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#11798907) |
Date: May 22nd, 2009 2:39 AM Author: irate yellow really tough guy step-uncle's house
for a while, lexis forgot to put its practice area guides (like employment law, etc.) behind a password wall. it wasn't available directly, but you could just type in the URL based on a slight tweak from the URLs from the sample pages, and get the whole thing to come up.
i think they changed this, though.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#11798920) |
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Date: May 23rd, 2009 12:09 PM Author: Maroon impertinent liquid oxygen
Cannot stand research. In order:
1. Phone a more experienced friend at another firm, same practice area obv.
2. Phone library, make them do it.
3. Google.
4. Get someone junior to do it.
http://lawdemon.blogspot.com/
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#11806182) |
Date: January 14th, 2010 11:23 PM Author: exhilarant mood national
Use Internet Explorer, or another browser that highlights words when you Control-F search them. With some creative use of this, you can get really good at scanning a case quickly to find the most relevant part.
But my best tip is to start with a treatise.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#13810836) |
Date: February 21st, 2010 11:45 AM Author: soul-stirring potus abode
1) Use Westlaw, not Lexis. The reason is that when you get your search results, Westlaw shows you more context around your search terms. (I've talked to the people at Lexis and they aren't able to duplicate this.) Usually you can successfully scan the results for hundreds of cases at a time without opening too many individual cases. This is a huge deal.
2) Search broadly, focus narrowly using Locate. This is not very important in law school, where everything is free, but it's crucial in practice.
3) Imagine ways in which a court would phrase the proposition you're looking for. Suppose you want to find a case in which the Court construed "after" as used in a statute or contract--e.g., to argue that "after January 1, 2010" does not include January 1. If you blindly try to use terms and connectors, like this -- after /s (constru! interp!) -- you'll have a tough time. Much better is realizing the court is likely to say something like "The word 'after' means . . . ." or "The phrase after [Date] does not include . . . ." Thus, you should search for ("The term after" "The word after" "after means") or (after /s "does not include").
4) Once you find a good case, check out all the citing references to see if you can find more cases. Or if you're lucky, you may find treatises that collect almost every case on your issue, and cite your case as one example.
5) Understand the reality of persuasive authority. If you're in a federal district court, it goes like this. 1) Precedential appellate opinions; 2) Non-precedential appellate opinions in same circuit; 3) The opinions of the judge you're before (whether published or not); 4) The opinions of the district court you're in (whether published or not); 5) Opinions of other district courts in the same circuit (whether published or not) (tied with) 6) Opinions of appellate courts outside your circuit; 7) Opinions of other district courts outside the circuit; 8) treatises. Anything below 8 (e.g., journal articles) is a waste of your time. Also, there is a big gap between 7 and 8. Judges are very persuaded by opinions of other judges.
Realize that there is little significant difference between published cases and unpublished cases. Every unpublished district court case is citable. Every appellate court case after 2007 is citable. So what if they're not precedential? Do you think your judge is going to want to decide a case in a manner that conflicts with the ruling of an appellate court panel in his circuit?
6) Following up on 5 -- When selecting a database to search, use the smallest database in which you think you are very likely to get cases on point. If it's something very basic that there has to be clear law on, you should choose appellate cases in your circuit. If it's a relatively unique situation, your best bet is usually "All Feds."
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#14188782) |
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Date: April 17th, 2010 11:35 AM Author: Frisky thriller library goyim
"This is not very important in law school, where everything is free, but it's crucial in practice."
In practice, virtually everyone has a flat-rate plan.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#14737282)
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Date: April 17th, 2010 11:49 AM Author: Frisky thriller library goyim
http://www.citegenie.com/
Bluebooks cases for you.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=971140&forum_id=2#14737348)
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