Description

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KEY BENEFIT Legal Research and Writing: A Practical Approach for Paralegals introduces readers to the process of legal research and writing with a very readable, yet thorough, step-by-step approach. Students will become proficient in legal research through easy-to-understand text and helpful visual aids, the application of learned concepts to a recurring case study, as well as many practical and engaging problems and fact-based exercises. Utilizing both print and online sources, students will learn how to conduct legal research with maximum results. The text provides a unique guided approach to Westlaw(R) and Lexis(R) instruction and a comprehensive case study where students must apply the skills they've learned throughout the course. They will learn where to find the law, as well as how to effectively read, understand, analyze, and apply the law to any given fact pattern. In addition, detailed instruction is provided on the rules for quality writing and the important and practical skills of legal analysis, proofreading, editing, and cite-checking. In short, this book will equip the student with all the necessary tools needed to complete any basic legal research assignment. KEY TOPICS: Practical Approach, Research Fundamentals, Step-by-Step Process, Comprehensive, Case Study, My Law MARKET For courses in legal research and writing.

About the Author

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Robert P. O'Neill Jr., J.D., is a lawyer and professor who began his legal career at the District Attorney's Office in Philadelphia, beginning as a volunteer and later employed as a paralegal in various units within the office. Thereafter, he accepted an invitation to study law in Pittsburgh where he earned his Juris Doctorate at Duquesne University. While enrolled in his legal studies, he utilized and sharpened his research and writing skills as the senior law clerk at a large defense litigation firm. There, he performed legal research on complex issues on a daily basis and wrote numerous defense briefs and memorandums for multiple attorneys in the areas of workers' compensation, federal civil rights, municipal law, and personal injury law. He later returned to Philadelphia and became an adjunct professor of paralegal and pre-law studies at Drexel University. He created and taught Legal Research and Writing and Advanced Legal Research and Writing, as well as assisted in restructuring the Paralegal Studies Minor Program. During that time, he also served as a judicial clerk in the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania, where he has clerked in the homicide, felony, and family courts. He has engaged in hundreds of hours of legal research and drafted more than 80 judicial opinions to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, as well as three death penalty opinions to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. He also has mentored numerous undergraduate and law school interns providing basic instruction in legal research and writing. He has volunteered his time at numerous legal interest events, and served as a student mentor at his law school. Legal Research and Writing: A Practical Approach for Paralegals is his first published work. He currently resides in Philadelphia.