> Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1993 14:19:23 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Mary Whisner <whisner@u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Teachable Moment -- How to Use a Legislative Service
>
> Yesterday one of our regular patrons (a paralegal who is also
> reading for the law -- Washington is one of the few states that still has
> a program for clerking in a law office) came into the Reference Office
> holding the latest pamphlet of West's Washington Legislative Service and
> asked me how to use it. . . .
Wow, great "war story"! I would guess that research in Washington
statutes is maybe 30% of the research pie for Washington attorneys,
and the ability to update them accurately and completely is a pretty
good piece of that. You could fly a jumbo jet through a gap like
that!
Whenever I think I have seen the most alarming example of faulty
research skills possible a worse one comes along. I had an attorney
researching federal court procedure in the Washington Digest one day.
She wanted to find out how to change the attorney of record in a case
in the federal district court, and was hoping to find a Washington
opinion on the corresponding Washington procedure in which the federal
procedure was mentioned analogously. At least she knew that she was
looking in a digest of state court decisions, I'll grant her that. A
quick look at the federal court rules turned out to be a slightly
more efficient approach -- I was mostly just glad she didn't graduate
from here! :-)
------------------------------------------
James Quinn, Reference Librarian, Gonzaga University School of Law
james@gulaw.gonzaga.edu / (509) 484-2833 fax / (509) 484-6092 voice
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03/09/00 PST