Are you looking for ways to improve your legal research? Read these quick tips and find out how a new law book, Win More Cases: The Lawyer's Toolkit at www.win-more-cases.com, can help you to research the law and solve legal problems more persuasively.
October 7, 2008 (PRESSbooth.ORG) -- Here are 3 quick tips for improving your legal research. First, know that legal research is more than just finding cases and statutes. In Teaching Legal Research (2006), Dr Peter Clinch says "The concept of legal research as a skill has come a long way from the simplicity and narrowness of 'how to use a law library and the materials it contains'."
Legal research now comprises 3 functions: an analysis function, a searching function, and a communication function. As Clinch says: "[T]he essential elements of legal research skills may be isolated and expressed generically as: identifying and analysis a problem; finding appropriate information to solve the problem; [and] presenting the results of the analysis and research in an appropriate and effective manner".
Yet most books and courses still focus on "legal research" too narrowly, providing mechanical advice on how to use a law library, how to note-up a case, where to find legislation on a subject, and so on.
But how can you research a legal problem properly if you do not have a proper method for analyzing the legal problem in the first place? What use is legal research if you do not know how to communicate the results of your research persuasively?
Win More Cases: The Lawyer’s Toolkit addresses this problem by providing an easy-to-follow, step-by-step model that integrates All Three functions of legal research: searching, analyzing, and writing.
The second tip is to give yourself enough time. Lawyers' shortage of time is the biggest barrier to effective legal research. In Why Can't Lawyers Write? American litigation lawyer Christopher Lutz says "Litigation is an endless series of crises and deadlines … Gone are the days, if ever they existed, of reflection on legal points". As a result, advice that takes time to apply, or requires care or thought, "will be ignored in the rush of events, deadlines, and judicial impatience".
Other books on legal research forget that lawyers simply don't have the time to implement a lot of the advice they're given on legal research and writing.
But Win More Cases: The Lawyer’s Toolkit is different. It confronts lawyers’ shortage of time head-on. The Toolkit provides an easy-to-follow, step-by-step model for working through cases, which itself saves lawyers time. But that’s not the real secret behind the Toolkit. The real secret is the way the Toolkit links to tools aimed at automating legal analysis, research, and writing. The Toolkit gets you to think, without thinking. It also includes a “workbench” of common legal arguments and a compendium of quick, expert tips on the essence of winning cases.
The third tip is to look outside your area of expertise. In How to Find the Law, Robert A Kesler says "The great secret, kept by all lawyers, is that lawyers don’t know the law … there is too much law for any man to master in his lifetime". Since no lawyer can master every area of law, lawyers compartmentalize the law and focus on 1 or 2 areas of expertise. But the law can’t be so neatly contained, which means you might miss a winning argument if it’s outside your experience.
Win More Cases: The Lawyer's Toolkit confronts this problem by helping you to research and analyze across legal subject areas, and even across other areas relevant to litigation, such as factual research. The Toolkit provides you with tables, checklists, and brainstorming devices, and engages all parts of your brain through text, color, and pictures.
Little wonder reviewers are welcoming the Toolkit as “an extraordinary piece of work”, “amazing”, and “an invaluable resource”.
Visit www.win-more-cases.com for further information.
About Serenson P/L and Research One P/L:
Serenson P/L and Research One P/L are sister companies. Serenson commercializes Research One’s ideas into products for lawyers, such as Win More Cases: The Lawyer’s Toolkit (www.win-more-cases.com). Serenson also operates a free community website called Write Better English (www.write-better-english.com). Research One (www.research-one.com.au) provides award-winning customized legal research and writing services to lawyers worldwide.
Contact:
www.win-more-cases.com
:: 
:: 
::
