Teaching Legal Research

Like the phrase 'information service' the skill of legal research can mean different things to different people.Although long considered one of the basic skills a lawyer should possess it has lacked a consistent and universally acknowledged definition.Traditionally legal research has been applied to the activity of scholarship and writing undertaken almost exclusively by academic lawyers. More recently it has been used to describe the skill students need to acquire as part of their degree and professional studies and eventually employ when in legal practice. This book is mainly concerned with how to teach the skill in its recent rather than more traditional guise.