Course Description
| Course Title: |
Legal Research |
| Course Number: |
PA 2220 |
| Credits: |
3 semester credits |
| Prerequisites: |
PA 1102 - Introduction to Law and Contracts. |
| Recommendations: |
A student must have completed PA 1102 and ENG 1108
in order to take this course. Also, the student will need to go to a
full-service law library off-campus to complete some of the federal
legal research exercises. Otherwise, the IHCC library contains all
Minnesota law resources needed to complete Minnesota exercises. The
instructor will provide a suggested list of off-campus law
libraries.
|
| Catalog Description: |
Provides an understanding of the law library and
will assist the student in developing research skills through the
use of digests, reporters, statutes, administrative materials and
secondary materials. This course includes practice problems
requiring legal research. The course also will include an
introduction to computerized legal research. |
| Outcomes: |
Students will be able to:
- Demonstrate and apply a basic understanding of how to conduct
manual and computerized legal research.
- Find, research, and cite legal texts, statutes, codes,
regulations and cases.
- Interpret, use and evaluate the Shepard system and the Blue Book
for citations.
- Use and analyze legal encyclopedias, digests, reporters,
statutes, administrative and executive publications, loose-leaf
publications, periodical literature, treatises, restatements,
uniform state laws, dictionaries, and words and phrases citators.
- Compile legal research information and draft a short memorandum
of the findings.
- Recall, interpret and analyze the basic rules of legal
professional responsibility, ethical considerations and
confidentiality as it relates to legal research.
|
| Topics Covered: |
- Introduction to Sources of Law, Authority,
and Holdings (0.5 hours)
- Organization of Legal Research Materials (0.5 hours)
- Citation Form (2.5 hours)
- Strategies for Research (3.5 hours)
- Judicial Opinion (2 hours)
- Publicized Cases (Reporters)
(3.5 hours)
- Case Finders (4 hours)
- Case Analysis (6 hours)
- Statutes (4 hours)
- Constitutions (1 hour)
- Legislative History (1 hour)
- Statutory Analysis (1 hour)
- Court Rules (1 hour)
- Citators (1 hour)
- Administrative and Executive Publications (3.5 hours)
- Loose-leaf Services (2 hours)
- Secondary Authority (4 hours)
- Computerized Legal Research (6 hours)
- Ethics (1 hour)
Total Semester Hours 48.0 |
| Course Objectives: |
To provide students with a basic understanding of
legal analysis, the tools available for legal research and the
process of conducting legal research.
|
| Course Measures: |
The students may take a midterm, do research
assignments and projects, and a final exam. Grading of assignments
and exams may be on a numerical basis. The final grade will be a
full letter grade (A-F). |
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All Rights Reserved
The Paralegal Program is located in the Twin Cities area,
Minneapolis - St. Paul, and serves much of Minnesota
and parts of Wisconsin.
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