Summer Legal Research Classes

If you are interested in improving your legal research skills, consider taking a special class this summer! Librarians are offering Colorado Legal Research and Foreign & International Legal Research courses. Each class is worth 2 credits and limited to 10 students.

Colorado Legal Research
This course will introduce students to legal materials generated by executive/administrative, legislative, and judicial branches of Colorado government. Students will develop research strategies for answering legal questions using primary and secondary resources and learn to relate the various sources of authority to the structure of Colorado government. Students are required to bring laptop computers to classes.
This course will be taught by Sheila Green, Reference Librarian.
(Enrollment in this class is now full; there is a waitlist)

Foreign & International Legal Research
This summer, Sturm College of Law will offer an inaugural class to meet the need for foreign and international law legal research skills.

In today’s legal environment, the need for knowledge of foreign and international law can come up unexpectedly, even in domestic practices. Some common areas in which questions arise are family law (adoption, custody), immigration/asylum law, commercial law, trade & arbitration, and transnational litigation (international litigation, enforcing foreign judgments).

This course will introduce students to concepts and skills used in international and foreign law research. Students will learn to construct successful research strategies involving questions of foreign law, public international law and private international law using print and online resources. Both primary and secondary authority will be covered in various formats. Students will understand how different legal systems and cultures influence the use and assessment of legal resources. The course will also equip students to critically evaluate current and future research tools.

No foreign language skills are required and while a previous course in comparative or international law may be helpful, it is not required. This course will be taught by Joan Policastri, Foreign, Comparative & International Law Librarian.