Introduction to International, Foreign, and Comparative Law Research

2 Credit Hours

The principal purpose of this course is to provide students with the basic knowledge and skills necessary to conduct legal research on international law and the laws of countries other than the United States. It also has the secondary, but important, goal of expanding on and reinforcing the basic legal research skills that students have earlier gained from Communication and Legal Reasoning (and for some, from Common Law Reasoning or other coursework in law school or from clerking). Although the course is only two credits, you will become reasonably knowledgeable about sources of International and Foreign law through exposure to them and skilled in researching various international and comparative legal sources through practical application in assignments. In short, this is a course on international and foreign legal research sources and techniques. There are six required assignments: three short research exercises on different types of international or foreign legal research; one outline of preliminary sources for your final research plan that will be discussed in a research conference with me; one in-class presentation on the topic of your research; and, one final paper. You have already learned about basic legal research in your first-year Communication and Legal Reasoning course or Common Law Reasoning course; we will focus here on using the research tools for international and foreign law. Registration Requirements: Completion of CLR I and II is recommended as pre-requisites for all JD students. Teaching Method: Class meets twice a week and the course will include both lectures and interactive in-class research in which students are expected to participate; four short research assignments; and, a research project (One outline of sources for final paper, a presentation, and one final memo on a topic of interest, e.g., international law or foreign law). Evaluation Method: Class participation (20% of final grade); three research assignments (10% per assignment for a total of 30% of final grade); outline of sources for final memo (15% of final grade); in-class presentation on topic of memo (15% of final grade); and, the final memo (20% of final grade).