Fall Class Offerings

The Law Library is offering the following workshops focused on research skills for papers, journal articles and notes, as well as your clinical courses. In these workshops, we'll help you find the answers to the questions presented below.   To sign up, just click here.

Locating Data Sources for Empirical Research, October 29th, 1-2 p.m.

Empirical research is prized in today's legal scholarship  -- but how do you find data to work with? In this class, you'll:

• learn where to find data sets on topics of interest;
• learn some of the top sources for reliable data in a variety of fields;
• where to go or call for expert help.

Finding and Refining Your Paper Topic, October 30th, 3-4 p.m.

Have a general subject area to write on, but not sure how to develop a workable topic?  This workshop will address these common questions:

• Where can you get topic ideas?
• How do you determine if your topic is too broad or too narrow?
• How difficult is researching your topic likely to be?
• How do you identify recent scholarship on your proposed topic? (known as preemption checking)?

Researching Public Policy Issues for Law Students, November 5th, 1 p.m.

Have to write a paper that's not strictly about legal research? This class will help you identify the best sources for policy research in a wide variety of areas, and learn how to use them to write a better paper. In this class, you'll:  

• learn how and why to use Harvard e-Resources such as PAIS and PolicyFile;
• learn how to identify thnk tanks, government organizations, nonprofits, and even individual experts with useful material on your topic; 
• learn where to get help for your specific research topic.

Researching American Legal History, November 13th, 3-4 p.m.

Oscar Wilde wrote: “The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.” If you are planning to rewrite some American legal history, come to this session to learn about some of the rich resources available at Harvard for your research. The class will cover:

• finding primary legal sources from the earliest days of the republic;
• finding classic treatises in American and British law;
• approaches to research using manuscripts and archives collections.

Environmental Law and Policy Clinic Research Drop-In Session, November 19th, 1-2 p.m. 

(PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A NEW DATE AND TIME)

Are you enrolled in the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic this semester?  Bring your difficult research questions to this open research review session.   Besides addressing your individual questions, this session will also review how to:

• use InfoAdvantage to help with your environmental law research;
• mine information in local environmental agency web sites;

• work with the print and online editions of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations.