Comprehensive resources can be dangerous things. Â Many humans are creatures of habit and will go to the usual well for their answers, but a well that produces fresh, clean water is not much use if what you really want is milk. Â This can be especially pernicious for law students, who begin to get the idea that the entire universe of knowledge is contained within Lexis or Westlaw. Â But not all the things a practicing lawyer needs to know are contained in statutes, cases, or treatises.
Consider the case of an accident in a warehouse – your client is injured in a forklift accident and there is some question as to the safety procedures and equipment.  “Quick – find me Jones on Forklifts,“ right?  Certainly there is such a treatise in one of the big two databases, right?
Wrong. Â Also silly. Â But it would be a safe bet that most law students who have had an introduction to those databases would turn instantly to them and do a keyword search for “forklift.” Â And there are undoubtedly cases galore having to do with forklift accidents. Â Perhaps there are even mentions of such accidents in Prosser or other tort resources.
But what does our hypothetical law student really know about the operation of a forklift? Â Doesn’t the fact pattern turn on the safety equipment and procedures? Â Some judges can write wonderful, detailed, and educational factual backgrounds that give plenty of context for the cases they are adjudicating, but it is a safe bet that reading through them is a woefully inefficient way of looking for information on the topic of forklift safety. Â The facts of the particular case at issue are potentially important here: they provide the context for the entire claim.
So, on the one hand we have a doubly expensive resource – a database that costs a great deal to use and is inefficient in terms of providing the factual information that will enable an attorney to assess the potential merits of the case. Â On the other hand, there are more precise, non-legal resources that can give the attorney the factual grounding in an unfamiliar subject he or she needs (e.g. the public library, OSHA’s website, possibly even Uncle Fred who is a supervisor in a warehouse and has done this kind of work for 20 years). Â Many or most of these are also free for the user.
Thinking about what sort of non-legal information is necessary to provide context for the claim can save a world of aggravation and grief and make the later search for legal authority far more efficient, cost-effective and fruitful.
(For people interested in teaching the combined use of legal and non-legal resources to solve legal problems, I can highly recommend Carrie Teitcher’s fantastic article, “Rebooting the Approach to Teaching Research: Embracing the Computer Age.”)