Course Description - Law 34 - Legal Research
                                                        updated: 9/09/01

Welcome to the Law 34 - Legal Research. aw 34 teaches the paralegal personal computer user skills, including using the internet and electronic computer research of various legal databases and legal research materials.

The student will learn the five step process of legal research, and will learn how to apply it to a series
of research problems to learn and improve the skills of legal research in the office environment.

The student will learn how to distinguish cases and codes/statutes, and how to carry on a legal
research problem, and will prepare a written legal memorandum of the results of their legal research.

Law 34 introduces the student to computerized legal research through the new technology of online
legal research and the internet, accessing and finding case law, formulating a search request,
searching with various search engines to find the law and the use of the paralegal webpage for legal
research on the internet. The student will learn to use terms and connectors, restricting searches,
searching in statutes, court rules & cases, retrieving legislation, current court decisions, searching
government regulations and administrative law, using the internet. Each student will be assigned a
major research topic to research and report their results using what they have learned in the course.

The student will learn how to read and brief law cases, the court rules, how to locate
California and Federal Codes, how to use the internet to do legal research, how to do a
simple pleading, how to locate and use law on the internet, how to use search engines, and
the student will learn how to use the paralegal webpage to locate other areas of the law.

This 15 week semester class (only 13 actual weeks due to holidays) is designed to give the student a familiarity with and the student will learn an overview of law and the legal system, , including the courts, the court system, how to read, understand and brief court cases, how to read, and understand California and Federal Codes, and a general overview of substantive laws which a paralegal must be familiar with to do their job properly.

The student will learn to "think critically" in law, This will be accomplished through the multiple-choice quizzes, postings to hypothetical legal questions in a threaded discussion format ("hypernews") and written assignments.  The assignments require the student to read and brief court cases, anaylyze code sections, prepare a pleading, and other relevant legal tasks related to the subject materials.

The student will learn how to do legal research in general, how to phrase a legal question or issue, and how to search for the correct "legal" answer. The student will improve their writing skills and learn basic skills in legal drafting and writing.  Finally, he student will improve their study skills and will improve how they study law.

This course is supplement with online materials to meet the student's needs for flexibility in time and space. Many college students are working full-time or have transportation limitations due to financial reasons.The course is transferrable to CSU. You should consult with our Counseling Department to determine the exact trasnferability of this class. You may also wish to email a counselor at our college.

Types of activities:

Lectures will be posted under "lectures" on our homepage for this class. The lecture will be both a summary of the reading assignment and a filling-in of the gaps in that assignment. One purpose of the lecture is to answer the question, "What do you really need to know?". It will help the student focus on the major concepts in the textbook.

Reading Assignments are listed under lectures, and and will be given from Textbook

Textbook: Our textbook for this class is "How to Find & Understand the Law" Nolo Press, 9th Edition, August 2001 Stephen Elias & Susan Levinkind ISBN #: ISBN: 0-87337-767-2. You may purchase the book in the bookstore, or through the internet at http://www.nolo.com/product/LRES/summary_LRES.html

Threaded discussions (on Bulletin Board): student participation in asynchronous
online discussions will form a significant part of the grade (see grading below). Discussion
questions based on text and Website readings will be posted weekly in the Bulletin Board
page. Discussions will take place using the Bulletin Board.

Online Quizzes: The quizzes  will consist of multiple-choice questions (25 for each chapter), the questions will probe a deeper understanding of the concepts, which requires critical thinking and an intellectual tying-together of the reading material.

Legal Briefs: These will consist of writing "legal briefs".

Course Evaluation:

The final grade will be determined by:

Quiz average: 100 points per each quiz

Discussion questions: 100 points per discussion

Assignments: 250 or more points per project.

The grade is calculated by an excel spreadsheet by adding up the total points available and dividing that into the actual points earned and multiplying by 100 to give a point grade out of 100.

Grades are 0-50 F, 50-68 D, 68-79 C, 80-89 B, and 90-100 A.