Legal Research may be Easy, But You Need to Be Willing to Do a Little Work

I like this new blog: Legal Research is Easy, in part because it’s funny and in part because Legal Research is NOT Easy, which makes the blog name also very funny, or perhaps ironic. (Potential irony is too deep for me, so I’ll just enjoy the ride.)

The Horse to Water blog post describes a Q&A familiar to any public law librarian and very likely any legal aid or court support staff front-line staff member. You see, we do try to make legal research as easy as possible, but ….

Excerpt: After the law librarian shows the patron some excellent, truly excellent, research resources that would go a long way to answering the question posed:

‘…. The patron asked, “What do I do now?” I said, “You need to read it.” To which the patron replied, “Oh, that’s too much work. Why can’t you just tell me what to do?”….’ [Link to full Horse to Water blog post.]

Note: Public law librarians do work with patrons with reading and sight disabilities, and we do know that some people with visual disabilities will not disclose this and just keep asking us what they should do. This blog post is addressing a different problem, i.e. the person who will not do the work, not the patron who can’t do the work and who truly needs legal assistance from an attorney.