Legal Research Explained, Sixth Edition

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The Sixth Edition of LEGAL RESEARCH EXPLAINED offers accessible, complete, and timely coverage specifically created for Legal Research courses. Deborah A. Bouchoux’s popular building-block approach ensures that all students can master these essential skills.

The text is divided into five sections, as follows: 1) conducting legal research using primary authorities; 2) conducting legal research using secondary authorities and other research aids; 3) electronic and computer resources; 4) legal citation form and validating authorities; and 5) “putting it all together,” providing a final overview of the legal research process.

Research assignments in each chapter, completely updated for this edition, give students practice using sources. Charts, diagrams, and sample pages from research resources help students understand complex topics. In addition, Practice Tips in each chapter offer realistic and helpful suggestions for workplace success, and Ethics Alerts are included throughout the book.

Professors and students will benefit from:

• Pedagogy designed to enhance the accessibility of the material, including helpful charts and diagrams, annotated sample pages and screen shots that illustrate legal research authorities, updated Practice Tips offering realistic and helpful suggestions for workplace success, and Ethics Alerts in every chapter.
• Well-designed assignments help students learn how to use a wide range of research sources.
• Each chapter demonstrates citation form for the resources discussed.
• Conscientious revision ensures that the book has the most up-to-date material, presented in a readable and accessible format.

New to the Sixth Edition:

• An entirely new feature in each chapter, AI Advocate, links a topic in the chapter with AI tools or illustrates how material in the chapter is affected by generative AI.
• Significant focus on newer technologies available to legal researchers such as the following: the Lexis+ products Brief Analysis, Context, and Protégé; Westlaw Edge’s CoCounsel and Quick Check; vLex Fastcase’s AI platform Vincent; and others. These tools can answer research questions, draft emails and documents, analyze language in a document to point researchers to relevant authorities and disclose authorities that might have missed, all while indicating whether the authorities are still good law.
• Enhanced discussion of Fastcase, the legal research platform provided by nearly all state bar associations to their members.
• Coverage of the use of analytics tools now used by legal professionals that identify language a specific judge has relied on in issuing options so writers can craft a winning argument using language the judge has already endorsed.
• An entirely new section in Chapter 8 on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in legal research, explaining the differences between extractive AI and generative AI, describing how AI can be used to enhance legal research and check an opponent’s research, cautioning of the dangers and pitfalls of relying on “unvetted” nonlegal AI sources such as ChatGPT, as well as discussing pending proposals for regulation of AI.
• Discussion of whether the duty of technology competence required of legal professionals extends to a “duty to Google.”
• A revamped and expanded discussion in Chapter 12 on e-memos and a new assignment requiring students to draft an e-memo.
• New ethics information such as coverage of the 2024 American Bar Association’s guidance on the use of AI tools and the ethical duties of legal professionals when using AI.
• New and updated figures, including new screenshots for Lexis+, Lexis + AI, and Westlaw’s Edge, Precision, and CoCounsel, new sample pages from the Code of Federal Regulations and the Federal Register, and more.
• References to helpful YouTube videos, blogs, and podcasts for information on research topics.
• All new end-of-chapter research questions and Internet questions. Chapter 12 includes a full range of open-ended research questions, requiring readers to use and apply all skills learned in previous chapters to obtain answers to these research questions.