Legal Research Education in the UK

Abstract

Academic legal literature in the USA is punctuated at regular intervals by discussions of the quality of legal research and writing tuition in the law schools. None of these discussions makes question of the place of such courses within the curriculum. The debate centers upon what should be taught, when, and by whom, and how effective such teaching may be. My first contact with such courses came during a period of work in the USA and when, on my return to the UK, I was required to set up a course in legal information studies, I turned to the UK literature for material on teaching legal research. The result of my search was a complete blank. Indeed, it is difficult to find discussion of any kind on such topics as curriculum planning and the interrelation of legal subjects in teaching programs. The structure of legal education in the UK has been the subject of government reports, but in the main these deal with mechanical and financial aspects—what the apprentice lawyer should learn—and how his professional ability may be enhanced by his education is barely touched upon. There is certainly nothing in the UK literature since the turn of the century on the methods of teaching legal research, nor any debate upon the desirability of teaching such a subject. Basic textbooks on legal bibliography exist, most of which offer guidance, at various levels of sophistication, as to how the novice may handle the literature of law, but it is apparent on examination that none of these are teaching texts, evolved and tested during the repetition of a course of instruction, as are many US texts. We possess nothing in print that might be compared with Price and Bitner's Effective Legal Research (to name just one such book), with its guidance on search strategies and evaluation of sources and facts. I decided to do some basic research and ask all the UK institutions teaching law courses leading to eventual professional qualification what, if anything, they offered by way of instruction in legal research techniques.