Legal Research

Chief Justice Roberts on Legal Research and Analysis

By Diane Murley

John G. Roberts Jr., Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, spoke recently at Drake University Law School about how changes in technology have affected the way cases are decided. He recognized computer-assisted research as a powerful tool “for locating potentially relevant material,” but he went on to say:

Finding the law is now not such an important or elusive skill. With the push of a button or two, everyone has every case, for example, that cites a particular regulation or employs the critical legal terminology.

…

But law students and lawyers must continue to focus on what is relevant and what is not. With so much more raw material available at the push of a button, courts, especially mine, increasingly prize shorter and more coherent briefs. We judges can access raw data too, and what we look for from lawyers is help making sense of it all.

You can listen to the entire speech here. It is only 30 minutes long and well worth your time.

Full post as published by Ross-Blakley Law Library Blog on October 12, 2008 (boomark / email).