Bryan M. Carson, Finding the Law: Legal Research for Librarians and ParalegalsFinding the Law: Legal Research for Librarians and Paralegals by Bryan M. CarsonReview by: Ursula GorhamThe Library Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 2 (April 2013), pp. 182-184Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/669554 .

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Reviews

Finding the Law: Legal Research for Librarians and Paralegals. By Bryan M. Carson.

Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2011. Pp. xviii1280. $65.00 ðpaperÞ.ISBN 978-0-8108-8105-1.

T he title of Bryan M. Carson’s second book—Finding the Law: Legal Research for Librarians

and Paralegals—leaves little doubt as to its purpose or its intended audience. What

the title does not accurately convey, however, is the extent to which this book

explains the law in a way that nonlawyer professionals working in the legal field will ap-

preciate and find useful. The underlying premise of this book is that some degree of un-

derstanding of the broader context in which a particular court decision, piece of legislation,

or administrative regulation exists is often a prerequisite to “finding” the law. Law school

students, as opposed to students engaged in paralegal or library science studies, spend several

years learning about the substance of law ðe.g., torts, contracts, real propertyÞ as well as itsprocedural elements ðe.g., jurisdiction, federalismÞ. Rather than attempting the herculean

task of condensing everything that one learns in law school into one slim volume, Carson

wisely chose to focus on those aspects of legal education that directly inform the work of

law librarians and paralegals. Finding the Law is a succinct primer for these professionals that

will not only familiarize them with a range of print and online legal resources but will also pro-

vide them with relevant information pertaining to the legal system in which these resources

are rooted.

As described at the outset of this book, it is intended to fill a gap in the existing lit-

erature on legal research. Lawyers, paralegals, and law librarians all play an essential

role in the process of legal research. This process, however, has become rather compart-

mentalized, creating a somewhat strict division of labor. As Carson notes, this division

is reflected in the classroom—the purpose of legal research classes in law school is to de-

velop students’ aptitude for legal reasoning, whereas classes for paralegals emphasize

legal procedure, and law librarianship classes focus on familiarizing students with legal

resources. The problem, according to Carson, is not that each profession has adopted

a different approach to legal research education but rather that law librarians and parale-

gals conducting legal research in the “real world” are expected to focus their energy on

the particular task at hand, often resulting in little, if any, thought being given to how

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182

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that task fits into the research process as a whole. Carson’s goal, as expressed in the

book’s introduction, is straightforward—he strives to help paralegals become better ac-

quainted with legal resources and law librarians to better understand procedural issues

while, at the same time, introducing both professions to the concept of “think½ing� like a

lawyer.”

He accomplishes this goal by interspersing brief narratives that introduce key legal

concepts together with practical research tips and bibliographies of legal resources. Inas-

much as the backbone of the legal system in the United States is the Constitution, it is not sur-

prising that Carson devotes a fair amount of time to first discussing the origins of this doc-

ument, from the Articles of Confederation to the Bill of Rights, and later providing an

overview of how the Supreme Court carries out its primary role of interpreting the Con-

stitution, using the Fourteenth Amendment to highlight the evolution of the court’s juris-

prudence. Those readers primarily interested in using the various bibliographies to become

better acquainted with the universe of legal resources may not, at first blush, see the utility

of Carson’s brief lesson in constitutional law. To the extent, however, that many legal re-

search questions presuppose a rudimentary understanding of our legal system, this lesson

may prove to be quite useful.

Having laid the foundation by communicating a sense of the primacy of the Constitu-

tion, Carson proceeds to build out the discussion by presenting a basic overview of the legal

research process. The emphasis here is on helping readers access the necessary information,

a concept with which librarians are quite familiar. A brief tutorial on how to read common

legal citations is followed by a summary of basic print and online resources with which any-

one conducting legal research should be familiar ðe.g., Cornell Law School’s Legal Infor-

mation Institute, Westlaw, LLRXÞ, as well as a number of lesser known yet highly useful

resources ðe.g., the Seattle Public Library’s compilation of freely searchable municipal codesÞ.The inclusion of print resources may seem antiquated to some readers but, in chapter 10,

Carson offers arguments to debunk the related myths that ð1Þ all legal resources are online

ðnoting that state judiciaries have made uneven progress toward digitizing court opinionsÞand ð2Þ the online format of a legal material is always superior to its print counterpart. This

bibliography will be of particular interest to law librarians who, when helping patrons with

legal questions, may worry about stepping over the boundary of reference service into the

unauthorized practice of law.

Much of the remainder of the book is devoted to expounding upon the different types of

information produced by each of the three branches ðexecutive, legislative, and judicialÞ ofthe federal government. With respect to legislative materials, readers will find a brief over-

view of congressional powers, as well as techniques for finding the texts of laws and legis-

lative history materials. As for executive branch and administrative agency materials, Carson

introduces readers to the fundamentals of administrative law, explaining how regulations

Reviews • 183

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are promulgated and how administrative hearings are conducted. This overview leads into a

discussion of the Freedom of Information Act ðFOIAÞ and the Presidential Records Act.

Not everyone may fully understand the issues of access that arise when working with gov-

ernment documents, and Carson performs an indispensable service to his readership by

offering practical advice on how to file a FOIA request ðincluding a template for guidanceÞ.The chapter focused on the judicial branch is essentially an abbreviated version of the

legal research class that first-year law students typically take, touching upon basic issues

of civil procedure ðe.g., standingÞ and, probably more relevant to most readers, explain-

ing how to find case law and how to verify that what has been found is, in fact, “good”

law.

Although most of the book is focused on federal law, Carson also devotes time to ex-

plaining both treaties and state legal systems, focusing on the way in which each interacts

and, at times, intersects with the US legal system. Due to the fact there is no central re-

pository for either bilateral or multilateral treaties, readers who are new to foreign or inter-

national law research will find Carson’s bibliography of sources that provide the full text of

treaties to be particularly helpful.

For many readers, the most appealing feature of the book undoubtedly will be the an-

notated lists of legal resources. Each list will not only help readers locate the desired legal

information ðoften in a variety of formatsÞ but will also point them toward resources that

can help them to decipher legal jargon. Carson encourages readers to come to their own con-

clusions about the usefulness of different resources, and he generally refrains from making

endorsements or recommendations. From time to time, however, he does depart from his

neutral stance, providing an opinion as to the relative merits of online and print versions of

several resources. By way of example, he notes that the print version of the Code of Fed-

eral Regulations has a poor index, whereas the online version is rendered more useful

through its keyword searching capability. Carson’s point that law librarians and paralegals

should become adept at evaluating resources for themselves is well taken. The few insights

that he does offer regarding the user-friendliness of different formats of certain legal re-

sources, however, are extremely valuable, and readers would have benefited from ad-

ditional insights of this nature.

Nevertheless, Carson’s decision to limit the amount of editorializing does not prevent

him from attaining his stated goal of helping paralegals and law librarians better under-

stand each other’s roles, as well as the role of lawyers, in the legal research process. Carson

clearly understands how the different parts of the process fit together, resulting in a book

to which both novice and experienced paralegals and law librarians can turn when they

are faced with a new legal research project.

Ursula Gorham, College of Information Studies, University of Maryland

184 • The Library Quarterly

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