[blindLaw] Increasing Efficiency in the Workplace

Mon Oct 14 14:30:05 UTC 2024

Hi Julie!

Aser’s research approach is what I do, with some minor variations. Briefing
cases is uniquely a law school experience, and you will rarely have to do
it again once you actually start to practice law. I know I initialy took
down research notes that looked like law school case briefs. I did that
because the case brief format was a familiar security blanket. I suspect
you are doing similarly!

As to your specific questions:

Re memos: First, know what purpose your memo serves. Internal research
memos are supposed to present legal research in a fairly impartial manner
and inform the audience so a decision about advocacy can be made. A memo of
law and authorities in support of a motion is a piece of advocacy. It
should not be impartial and disinterested but rather, advance a position
and prompt the court to rule in your favor. Next, based on the purpose of
your memo, you can be more discerning about what you want from the research
and whether you need to read every inch of an opinion. Sometimes the
holding is all you need; other times, you will require the holding, some
facts, and useful language from the analysis. I will add that if you skim
an opinion, make sure you look at the negative history to make sure the
reason for citing the case has not been invalidated or compromised in some
way detrimental to your purpose (usually more an issue for advocacy
pieces). For the internal research memos, many people like to have a folder
full of the cases you read, so you should not feel like you have to include
all a cases’s pincites. And you should not because your job is to review,
analyze, and distill a long legal opinion down to the case’s main
points/propositions!

Re skimming: Most legal opinions and/or opinion and orders follow a
structure. Usually, (1) the judge has a summary of the parties’s
positions/claims and the major holdings/conclusion of what the court
decided; (2) the facts; (3) procedural history and developments; (4)
jurisdictional law and analysis; (5) substantive law and analysis; (6)
conclusions and specific orders. Many opinions also have headings and
subheadings. You can use these structures to let you jump to what you need.
If you are after a quote, you could use the find command to locate that
quote.

Once you have more time doing research and start to narrow your practice,
you can also use treatises and American Law Reports that collect cases for
you, with the important language or principle identified for you.

Sincerely,

Nikki

On Wed, Oct 9, 2024 at 4:14 AM Aser Tolentino via BlindLaw <
blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> When I’m researching, I generally run a search and scroll through the
> results list to see what portion of text returned the match before reading
> the whole case, eliminating most results as superfluous. Then I actually go
> into the promising ones and search for the text strings that interest me.
> If I find something good, I immediately highlight it and copy to a text
> document, then do a find for the next nearest asterisk to get the page and
> jump back up to the top of the page to copy the case cite. Rinse and
> repeat. It might be enough to copy the synopsis of the case to give your
> mind something to recall about essential facts as well. I then also tend to
> download all the cases I cited and put them in a folder with the research
> to allow for easy reference later. HTH
>
> > On Oct 9, 2024, at 2:12 AM, Sanho Steele-Louchart via BlindLaw <
> blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> >
> > Julie:
> >
> > You'll start to remember cases by name and context when you work in the
> same area for a while. In the meantime, or when working on something new,
> would it be helpful to take down just a few words about a case and
> copy/paste anything that seems useful, along with its corresponding page
> number in the asterisks, to help you jump back to that place in the future?
> JAWS placemarker command is also a great way to put down virtual
> sticky-notes you can jump to or bring up in a list.
> >
> > Sanho
> >
> >> On Oct 8, 2024, at 10:32 PM, Julie A. Orozco via BlindLaw <
> blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi everyone,
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I hope the following question makes some sense. I have just started my
> first
> >> real attorney job out of law school. Although I'm enjoying the work and
> >> learning a lot in general, I'm also finding that my methods for doing
> >> research and completing work just don't seem as efficient as maybe I
> thought
> >> they were in law school. I am open to any suggestions you might have,
> but
> >> here are a few specific questions to start.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> How do you avoid going back after you've written your memo or whatever
> and
> >> citing everything? When I do my research, I don't know which quotes and
> >> ideas will be helpful, and I don't want to pin-cite the entire case,
> >> especially if it's 30 pages. But going through later to find citations
> feels
> >> like such a drain on my time.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> If you have a lot of research to do, and you don't need to read
> everything
> >> in a case to find what you want, how do you skim for it? I've thought of
> >> using the find command, going through the case to find headings, and
> just
> >> tracking the thread of the case to see when the relevant issues will be
> >> discussed. But I'm open to other strategies too.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> When I read cases, I like to brief them because otherwise, I'll never
> >> remember them later if I don't. One of my colleagues suggested that
> might
> >> not be a good use of my time. Is briefing cases not a thing outside of
> law
> >> school? How else do people keep track of what they've read. I read so
> much
> >> every day that I'll never remember it all and put it in the correct
> context
> >> if I don't take notes in some way. I've also found that taking notes and
> >> summarizing things in my own words helps me process and comprehend what
> I
> >> read. But maybe there's something I'm missing?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Maybe this is because I started law school during the pandemic, or
> maybe I
> >> just didn't learn everything I could. (I was never on journal or
> anything
> >> like that.) But I wish I had better strategies for tracking research,
> >> citations, and skimming through very long cases for the right
> information. I
> >> use Jaws, just received a Mantis Braille display through my job, and
> don't
> >> have any issues with accessibility at present. I'm proficient with all
> my
> >> technology but not a tech master or anything.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks for any suggestions. I am so grateful for my current position and
> >> really want to do well where I am.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Julie
> >>
> >>
> >>
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