Improve your legislative history research skills! This webinar is designed to help students and recent graduates (and anyone else) get a head start on the type of research they are likely to be assigned during their summer positions. The facilitator will cover the legislative process and focus on how to use ProQuest Congressional and Legislative Insight to do the research and find the documents. Most federal courts and government agencies have these databases, as well as a number of non-profit law libraries that private law firms belong to.
Using Legislative History to Find Legislative Intent
This 90-minute session is designed for the summer associate, judicial, law firm or government agency law clerk, intern, extern or research assistant. You will learn how to use ProQuest Congressional Digital Suite & Legislative Insight, the premier legal research tools for federal legislative and government materials to:
1. Develop an understanding of the legislative process both:
a. Procedurally – How did the language read as first proposed, what committees considered the proposal, when were amendments made and where was the proposal when it was amended;
b. As an adversarial process – who was lobbying in support of the proposal and what were they trying to accomplish, who was active in opposition what were their objections, who was responsible for amendments to the proposal;
2. Become familiar with the documents available pertinent to your issue;
3. Identify where in the process the changes you care about occurred – this provides a mechanism to narrow the scope of your search for explanations for why the language was changed;
4. Learn how to identify both direct and circumstantial evidence of intent.
Friday, April 25, 2014 10:00 am (Daryl Newhouse)
Thursday, May 1, 2014 1:00 pm (Daryl Newhouse)
Friday, May 16, 2014 1:00 pm (Daryl Newhouse)
Thursday, May 29, 2014 1:30 pm (Daryl Newhouse)
Thursday, June 12, 2014 1:00 pm (Daryl Newhouse)
Friday, June 20, 2014 9:00 am (Daryl Newhouse)
