SIU has two legal research courses, both required: Legal Research I (offered
Fall semester, first year) and Legal Research II (offered twice: between
Spring semester and Summer semester after the first year, OR Fall semester,
second year). Up until last year, all CALR training was done during Legal
Research II, which meant that students did not receive LEXIS or WESTLAW
training until after their first year of law school. We did this for several
reasons, including insuring that students receive a well-grounding in legal
research methods with the printed sources in Legal Research I, and that these
skills would be continued during the Spring semester of the first year in Moot
Court/legal argumentation exercises. Several law faculty have continued to
press for the restriction on CALR use until after moot court exercises have
been completed.
However, increased requests by students who work in firms with CALR access
during the summer between their first and second years, and our concerns that
our students be competitive with all others in the clerking environment caused
us to rethink our CALR training schedules. We have now moved introductory CALR
training to Spring semester during the first year, after the completion of
Moot Court exercises (generally after Spring Break). We divide the class into
half, with one half getting LEXIS training, the other WESTLAW. Training on
each system consists of an online tutorial, beginner and advanced hour
sessions, and exercises with assigned readings. Training is done by law
library faculty. Those receiving training on LEXIS then receive training on
WESTLAW during Legal Research II, and vice versa. The training arrangements
are not without their problems (especially scheduling the sessions so close to
exam periods), but they do allow us to concentrate on the manual skills,
before we integrate CALR with the manual skills during the advanced legal
research course.
However, the advent of the career libraries/databases on LEXIS/WESTLAW has
increased the pressure on us from students and the CALR vendors to offer CALR
access in the first semester. We have arranged for LEXIS/WESTLAW student
representatives to do career type searches for any first year who requests
them, and the Placement services department has sponsored demonstrations. If
LEXIS/WESTLAW would limit access for first years to just the career
libraries/databases (as they are doing for Summer, 1993), we would have no
problem with granting first years access to CALR. However, LEXIS/WESTLAW seem
unwilling to do this at this point, and claim that they do not want to
"unbundle" specific libraries for first or second year law students. In fact,
we have learned that one of our CALR vendors (to remain nameless) plans to "do
an endrun" around our CALR policy by contacting the Law School Dean's Office
directly, and argue for a change in the policy as a "benefit to the students."
Needless to say, this "political move" will not endear that CALR vendor to
us...so watch out for this at your school.
James E. Duggan, Computer Services Librarian (618) 453-8791
School of Law Library (TELEFAX) (618) 453-8728
Southern Illinois University (Bitnet) DUGGAN@SIUCVMB
Carbondale, Illinois 62901 (Internet) DUGGAN@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU
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