The View From the Trenches

One first year law student blogger describes What I’ve Learned in Legal Research:
1) The belief that Hitler carried around a copy of Nietzsche’s The Prince is a lie: it was really the Harvard Blue book.
2) You can find anything if you use the proper Boolean search: “meth lab” and “how to make” for example.
3) Don’t ever adopt a child or try to visit your grandchild – it’s too much fucking work. Buying a puppy is a lot less grief.
4) The answers to the questions aren’t really on Lexis. Instead, you have to find the top-secret missile corn silo, steal the fingerprints of the top CIA agent, and recite all of the words to “Informer” by Snow in order to find out what statute applies.
5) At 3:00 a.m. when you haven’t slept for days, it’s fun to call HeinOnline, heiny online.
6) The cheat codes to Doom can be found on the GPO Access site – you just have to now how to search it, man.
7) Drunk dialing the WestLaw customer support line provides hours of endless amusement.
8) If you make up statutes, you will get caught.
9) The line in Legally Blonde that says “Law school is for people that are boring, ugly and serious” really applies to people who do legal research.
10) When you do become a lawyer, hire a bunch of law clerks to find made-up statutes. Then, when they come to you in tears having searched for 18 hours straight to find the statute that outlines the proper way to wipe your ass, say in the most patronizing tone possible “just keep looking, it’s in there.”