Legal Research and New Attorneys: A Survey

As the 1Ls experienced their first law school class this week, delving into Legal Writing, Analysis, and Research, a timely report appeared summarizing how legal research is really performed by new attorneys.  "Rebooting Legal Research in a Digital Age," authored by Steven Lastres, Director of Library & Knowledge Management at the New York-based international law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, is drawn from the recent "New Attorney Research Methods Survey" conducted by the Research Intelligence Group.  The 190 survey respondents from both small and large firms, nearly forty percent of them 28 or younger, included many graduates from the classes of 2011 and 2012.  If you are like most of them, in your first few years of practice you will spend more than 30% of your time doing legal research, and you will likely spend most of this time using paid online services.  Like nearly half of those surveyed, you may think that legal research should be a larger part of the law school curriculum.  So focus in on those LWR classes and those training sessions and workshops given by the librarians.  And check out this revealing report on the current state of legal research for new attorneys.

Hat tip to Law Librarian Blog.          

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat