Advocate's Studio

This time, the “free and available” is brought to you by the Warren E. Burger Library at the William Mitchell College of Law. The site offers a tabbed window with primary legal materials by jurisdiction, topical materials, materials targeted to students, faculty and administrators, attorneys and non-lawyers, general information and research materials and secondary legal research resources such as blogs, citation and research guides, forms, journals and law reviews and portals and even a little international schwag.

There is a lot of good material to pour through. Consider adding it to your bookmarks, tagged “free”, “legal”, “resources”, and “research.”

Can it be true? Well, Arthur Miller, the King of Civil Procedure, says so. The Legal Writing Prof Blog has this entry about a recent Town Hall Meeting held in Portland Oregon sponsored by none other than West Publishing / Thomson. Apparently, law schools are sacrificing the practical for breadth of course selection. In Mr. Miller’s opinion, the pure practice apparently is suffering as a result.

Here is part one of the interview:

Here is part two of the interview:

 Mr. Miller believes that the deficit in research and writing skills begins in early elementary school and may not be rectified at the higher levels of schooling or on the legal job. This is particularly true if the new attorney ends up in somewhere other than the largest law firms, where there is some commitment to a certain level of basic research and writing training in-house for new attorneys.

Never fear. Even if you suffer from the deficits described by Mr. MIller, you can always find the best quality research and writing right here at Advantage Advocates!