Some use regular faculty to teach research skills, while others hire special faculty whose entire focus is upon such skills. Some forbid electronic legal research during the first semester or year, while others introduce it somewhere in the first year. There are many variations and sub-melodies among the foregoing. I am less interested here in the presentation or pedagogy than in the several very important things that few of them tell first year law students, particularly the fundamental elements or habits that will produce a good legal researcher, an effective and successful practitioner, and a continuously growing one. We use words to bind ourselves in business by proclamation, rather than by blood rituals, and to resolve our differences, rather than by the sword.
Law is a profession of words.
Law has a powerful and unique vocabulary which enables us to discuss legal issues precisely, efficiently and persuasively. The law student will never read more cases in his or her life than in law school's first year. This is the time to acquire and fix the habit of recognizing, remembering and using the law's unique vocabulary, legal nomenclature. We must cultivate habits of learning law's unique vocabulary, especially that which applies to federal law and to the state law where we practice. All previous editions are seriously obsolete.