Chapter 13
Burning the Midnight Oil: Legal Research
IN THIS CHAPTER
Grasping the basic steps of legal research
Getting familiar with the most important case finders
Researching outside the book
Formatting citations properly
You may find your most challenging yet rewarding responsibility as a paralegal is the hours you spend conducting legal research, whether in a law library or online. Legal research is a critical component in the success of civil and criminal law suits. Understanding legal research provides you with a passkey that opens doors to virtually every legal issue that might arise in the typical law office or freelance paralegal practice.
But by the same token, legal research has been known to result in endless hours of frustration, especially if you’re new at it. You must access an extensive amount of material that grows larger by the day. And because the law invariably changes, the legal material you find today may not appear in the same form tomorrow. It’s subject to continuous revision and updating. You may get so inundated with legal material that you reach the point ...
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