hey bob

[befsquire]

i have a research project for you. then i need 2 motions to suppress.

i'd like them finished by the time i wake up in the morning.

ready for your topics?

[befsquire]

c'mon, bob. i don't think you realize the opportunity i'm giving you here.

and i can give you a motion to use as a guide.

[jackrock]

Bob says: Bef is totally cool.

[befsquire]

i'd like to hear that from bob.

[Bob]

can i put it in on my resume

[befsquire]

yes: "wrote successful motion to suppress in the circuit court of the ninth judicial district of florida, in and for orange county, while in my first week of law school."

[Bob]

that sounds much better than "did legal research for woman on internet"

i actually just got finished reading an assignment in my legal research book so there's a small chance i'll be able to know what you're talking about

fire away, leave it up to me!

[jabumbo]

i move for a 30 minute recess so i can grab a hot dog from the vendor before he leaves

[befsquire]

k.

my guy is in the road leaning into the window of a mercedes, talking to the driver. LEO walks up and asks to search the car and the driver. driver says ok. LEO finds nothing. LEO then asks to search my guy, who decides to walk around to the front of the car but has his hand in his pocket where there is an unknown bulge. LEO goes over to him, shoves him against the car, and pats him down and feels an unknown object. LEO pulls it out and finds it's a cigarette box, but it is unusually light. he shakes it and can tell by the way the objects move that there is a stem and crack in the box.

now, tell me what issues you see, based on your week of school.

[Documad]

Hey, I am on vacation and I spent about four hours at a Starbucks this morning writing a reply brief. Three people asked me what I was doing.

[befsquire]

they wanted your table.

[Bob]

i'm not taking any classes in criminal law yet, but i don't think it would matter, because at this point, i don't know much about the subjects that i am taking, but, here goes

i think there's maybe a 4th amendment issue, searching the second guy without a warrant or permission (but with reasonable cause, you could certainly argue).

i guess you'd want to research if the guy's evasion of the officer and the potential threat of a weapon constitute a reason for a search?

how hard was he pushed against the car? i don't suppose brutality has anything to do with this.

then the drugs. maybe, does shaking the box constitue a valid reason to search it?

it's hard for me to say, really, i've mostly been learning about torts so far. torts and diversity

also, who's leo (LOL i kill me)

[befsquire]

i'm going with two angles. 1. it was a consensual encounter that my guy was free to end, which he showed non-verbally by walking away. 2. while the officer may have felt officer safety was an issue, he knew the box was not a weapon, and once he pulled it out he surely knew it was not a weapon and that safety was no longer a concern, thus he shouldn't have opened the box, and it doesn't fall under the plain feel doctrine because he couldn't tell it was contraband.

well done bob.

i think my other guy is screwed though.

[Bob]

hooray!

so uh, where should i send my invoice? do you have a secretary, or...?

[befsquire]

oh, i'm sorry bob. you're working for the glory, knowing you're the sole person on the side of the accused while the state has the entire power of the state's resources behind it.

oh, and they're called legal assistants now.

[Bob]

what a gyp, i'm gonna work in personal injury

[befsquire]

start working on your commercial

[Bob]

i've got shatner on the phone right now

[befsquire]

hope it's not your cell. those pauses, coupled with a cell phone, can really fuck up a conversation.

[Bitchamachacha]

YAY, BOB!

(y)

Your my new hero, and Beth's a hero, too, because I think my brain grew an entire quarter of a centimeter while I read this thread.

[Bob]

i was just looking in black's law dictionary and apparently in the eyes of the law, you're an infant until you're 21. i did not know that.

goddamn it it's 2:30 am and i'm reading a law dictionary, that sucks

[Bob]

i have a question for the lawyers of the board (i guess this could be done in PM form but screw it i don't feel like writing it out multiple times).

is research as big of a pain as it looks? i'm reading the textbook now, and this is really my first proper introduction to it. i'm sure that at this point, it's SUPPOSED to sound like a staggering task, and it does, and i'm sure the first few times i do it it's gonna suck a lot and i'm probably not going to do it very well (this sounds familiar). but what about you guys (gals, i guess)? is it second nature by now, or is it still hard as hell? i'm sure various cases offer various degrees of challenge, but just in general, do you find you can do it fairly easily? how long did it take to get the hang of it? how long did it take until you realized that you had got the hang of it?

i'm not asking for tips or anything (that's what i'm reading the textbook for, and i'm still only barely getting it...tips are only so useful without actual practice), i'm just asking how your experiences with learning how to do it were. it sounds pretty damned complicated right now. i wonder if the book isn't trying to scare me.

[befsquire]

bob, they have this new thing now to replace books, called the internet. it makes it so easy. you can do a natural language or boolean search, and you can choose where you want it to search from. or you can enter a citation and go from there.

using the actual books sucks because it wastes a lot of time. if i were to use actual books, i would first go to the statutes annotated and look up the statute. that would give me little case notes, and using those, i would go to the appropriate book in the southern reporter, second series, to see if the cases were what i needed. then i would go to shepard's to make sure that the cases were still good law, and i would look to see what other cases may have cited the ones i chose, and then go look those up, etc.

but once they give you your westlaw and lexis passwords and you can research that way, you do your search and you can click on an area of the case to see what other cases cited it. you can still end up with a ton of cases that way, but you just restrict your search or you stop when you have enough cases to make your point. (i need to learn that last part, as i now have 10 cases but i really only need 3 of them to win with my motion.)

[Gareth]

yeh i used to have problems knowing when to stop
still do
is there an american equivalent to halsbury's [i'm guessing no]?
i always used the nz equivalent as a place to start

[befsquire]

i'm not sure what halsbury's is.

there are two main companies who print all the law books (west thompson & lexis), and those companies both have sites to do research on. i prefer westlaw to lexis.

lexis has a free research site called lexisone, but it's pretty shitty because you can only get the last 5 years, and a lot of tools aren't available.

[Bob]

bob, they have this new thing now to replace books, called the internet. it makes it so easy. you can do a natural language or boolean search, and you can choose where you want it to search from. or you can enter a citation and go from there.

using the actual books sucks because it wastes a lot of time. if i were to use actual books, i would first go to the statutes annotated and look up the statute. that would give me little case notes, and using those, i would go to the appropriate book in the southern reporter, second series, to see if the cases were what i needed. then i would go to shepard's to make sure that the cases were still good law, and i would look to see what other cases may have cited the ones i chose, and then go look those up, etc.

but once they give you your westlaw and lexis passwords and you can research that way, you do your search and you can click on an area of the case to see what other cases cited it. you can still end up with a ton of cases that way, but you just restrict your search or you stop when you have enough cases to make your point. (i need to learn that last part, as i now have 10 cases but i really only need 3 of them to win with my motion.)

ah, see the book (the book! the book!) explicitly warns against relying too much on the internet (lexis and westlaw), to balance your research strategies to include both electronic and paper stuff. part of the reason is that using lexis or westlaw can be expensive, depending on your access to it. i already have my passwords, while i'm in law school i can use it for free, the school pays for it (and i pay the school out the ass for tuition, but more or less free). but in a law office, that's not a guarantee, so they warn against getting too reliant on it. i think there was another reason, too. i don't remember what it was. i apparently didn't read very closely.

but i just mean more in general, in terms of generating terms and knowing where to look and what to look for and how much you need and how much is too much and what words to use and not use, and all that stuff, does that get alot easier with experience?

[Gareth]

it's kind of a very comprehensive introductory commentary.
yeh i used to work for lexis when i was at law school, they funded my eating, drinking and other miscellanous expenses.
westlaw [brookers] is easier to use though but i got cheap txt books and free online access etc at lexis so whatever.

[befsquire]

but i just mean more in general, in terms of generating terms and knowing where to look and what to look for and how much you need and how much is too much and what words to use and not use, and all that stuff, does that get alot easier with experience?
oh, i'm with you now.

yes, it gets easier. your issues become very narrow, so you waste less time figuring out what direction to take your research. with my example above, it would look something like this when you first start out:

unlawful search & seizure ---> levels of encounters ---> terry stop ---> scope of patdown ---> officer safety & plain feel

and by the time you get further in, your search is just on officer safety and plain feel, because you know you had a consensual encounter that turned into a terry stop and all you wanna know is what case says a defendant is free to end the consensual encounter, and then, assuming the officer can do his terry patdown for weapons under the guise of officer safety, can he be pulling that pack of smokes out?

[befsquire]

gareth:

we have a lot of similar type things, but almost too many to choose from. for me specifically, the statutes annotated would be the best place to start, but my state specific criminal books would also be helpful, especially florida criminal procedure.

[skra75]

I love these legal threads. no really I do, they fascinate me. I really should have nosed around with you guys for a better divorce lawyer when I had the chance. meh, cest la vie.

[Documad]

It gets a lot easier. Then every once in a while, you have to do something you've never done before, or technology passes you by, and you feel like a moron all over again.

The hard part is when there is nothing to find. In most of the classes, there is an answer that they want you to find. When you're doing a real life assignment, and you don't find something, you don't know if that's because it's not there or if that's because you can't find it.

[Documad]

It gets much easier once you specialize. Criminal law tends to be easier than civil law because the language is standardized and the outline of issues is simple. Plus the cases are way more fun to read and they tend to be much shorter than civil law cases. In civil law, sometimes you have to read the facts several times before you can figure out what's going on. In civil law, it's more difficult to know where to look. After you work in an area for a while, you tend to know the basics (whether it's corporate issues, family law, antitrust, etc), but the worst case scenario is when you're the lowly law clerk or new associate who works for attorneys at a civil firm and you have to research an antitrust issue in the morning and an environmental issue in the afternoon.

I think that the internet search products work really well if you understand the issue that you're researching so that you know what you're looking for and you know it when you find it. It's best if you know that there is a rule that says something (like that you can't appeal an issue you failed to raise at the trial court level) and you're just looking for a case to cite in your paper. When I get a brand new issue, I still haul ass to the library and look at real books.

Whether you use the books/digests or Westlaw, you have to understand that human beings (most of whom have never practiced law) read opinions that various courts issued and they decide how to categorize what they read there. If the human being does a poor job of categorizing the issues in the case, then it's much harder for us to find that case later on. That's why I'm suspect of using just Westlaw. You will also notice loads of typos.

It all does work out in the end. You develop an internal sense of when you're on the right track. That just takes practice. But the technique I recommend most highly is making friends with really bright people who you can discuss things with.

[Rancid_Beasties]

lexis has a free research site called lexisone, but it's pretty shitty because you can only get the last 5 years, and a lot of tools aren't available.
As a law student, wouldn't he get free access to the entire lexis database? We get access to that, lexisnexisAU, westlaw, lawbook online, casetrack, factiva, ingenta connect, Lawlex, legal trac and about 20 others. Only one i use is Lexis though.

[Documad]

I believe that all practicing attorneys in the US use Westlaw. I haven't used Lexis since I was in school. None of my employers have ever had it. I used to enjoy Lexis for the non-law stuff.

[Justin]

"sits down"

Can I have a box of popcorn, and a large coke please?

[Bob]

But the technique I recommend most highly is making friends with really bright people who you can discuss things with.

hey...tell that to my classmates ;)

....because i'm a...bright person...is what i was going for there

i just can't pull off cocky, can i?


edit: yeah i get free access to lexis and westlaw while i'm law school. and the university's law library, obviously

[befsquire]

As a law student, wouldn't he get free access to the entire lexis database? We get access to that, lexisnexisAU, westlaw, lawbook online, casetrack, factiva, ingenta connect, Lawlex, legal trac and about 20 others. Only one i use is Lexis though.
yes. but i was mostly posting that for others. also, we weren't allowed to be using ours outside of school work, so it helps for places that don't pay for online access.

i have both at work, but i only use westlaw. i don't even know if i could find what i did with my lexis password.

[Rancid_Beasties]

They just make you enter your library card barcode and surname here. You can use it anywhere.

[Documad]

So, work interruptions have pretty much ruined my vacation. That doesn't usually happen, but Bob and Rancid Beasties, it's not too late to change your mind.

[Bob]

eh, i never liked vacations anyway. i don't like doing things

[Rancid_Beasties]

So, work interruptions have pretty much ruined my vacation. That doesn't usually happen, but Bob and Rancid Beasties, it's not too late to change your mind.
I doubt I'm going to be a lawyer anyway.

I'm just doing it for the chicks and the glory :cool:

But seriously, i dont think i'm going to be a lawyer. Maybe I'll start singing again.