Lexisnexis paralegal certificate of mastery

Graded Project

CALR Project By

Melynda Hill-Teter

Reviewed by

Brian Bastyr, Esq.

About the Author

Melynda Hill-Teter is a 1991 graduate of the Legal Assistantship Program at the University of California at Santa Barbara, an American Bar Association approved school. She has more than 20 years of experience in the legal field, and specializes in legal comput- er applications. Ms. Hill-Teter has received a Paralegal Certificate of Mastery in Lexis-Nexis online research. She has published articles in Legal Assistant Today and Law Office Computing. Ms. Hill-Teter is employed as a litigation paralegal in Scottsdale, Arizona.

About the Reviewer

Brian Bastyr is a senior attorney editor for West Group, a legal pub- lishing company. He earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law. He is currently a member of the Illinois bar, and has published a number of articles in legal journals.

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Printed in the United States of America

05/03/05

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INTRODUCTION 1

INTERNET 1

I. Build a Judge Profile 1 II. Perform Company Research 1 III. Evaluate Internet Information Quality 2

LEXIS-NEXIS 2

IV. Formulate a Search Request 2 V. Search and Retrieve Primary and Secondary

Legal Materials 2 VI. Verify the Accuracy of Caselaw and Statutes 3 VII. Company and Financial Research 3 VIII. Retrieve Public Records 3

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INTRODUCTION

Attorneys delegate legal research assignments to paralegals on a daily basis. Therefore, paralegals must be able to use CALR systems, such as Lexis, WESTLAW, and the Internet, to quickly and efficiently retrieve legal information. This graded project will test your skills in this critical area. Read the description of each legal research assignment and com- plete each assignment using the Internet or Lexis-Nexis.

INTERNET

Use the Internet for sections I, II, and III of this project.

I. Build a Judge Profile

Your firm has a case coming up for trial. Your supervising attorney needs you to profile the judge using the Internet. The judge’s name is Kathleen O’Malley, a federal district judge in Ohio. Print your research results.

II. Perform Company Research

Your attorney has signed on a new client, Dell Computer Corporation, and wants to learn more about Dell’s business operations. Print two (2) company profiles from independent sources.

CALR Project

CALR Project2

III. Evaluate Internet Information Quality Go to http://www.whitehouse.gov and http://www.whitehouse.net and compare and analyze the two Web sites. Write a few paragraphs evaluating the content of the information in the two sites.

LEXIS-NEXIS Use Lexis-Nexis for sections IV,V, VI, VII, and VIII of this project.

IV. Formulate a Search Request Your supervising attorney is representing a drug manufacturer that has designed a new arthritis drug. During clinical trials, volunteers who took the drug experienced heart palpitations and nervousness. The drug manufacturer has asked your firm if it must disclose the side effects of the drug to potential patients. The client needs an answer to this research question as soon as possible to determine if it should seek FDA approval in order to release the drug to the public. Formulate two queries for the research assignment using (A) natural language and (B) terms and connectors. Use Federal and State Caselaw as your source. Print just the first page of your research results in the Cite list format for each search query. Be sure your search requests are visible.

V. Search and Retrieve Primary and Secondary Legal Materials A. Retrieve and print the first two pages of the following

case by citation: 17 Cal. 3d 425.

B. Retrieve and print the first two pages of any case involving the following party name: Trump Wilshire Associates.

C. Retrieve and print the first two pages of the following case by docket number: B018788.

D. Explain the three different ways to display your research results and how to view the results. Print a sample document in each display type (for a long document, you may print only the first two pages to save paper).

E. Describe the types of secondary materials that are available on Lexis-Nexis, and name five specific sources.

VI. Verify the Accuracy of Caselaw and Statutes

Your supervising attorney has given you the following citations:

• 217 B.R. 598

• 523 U.S. 574

• Fed. R. Civ. P. 26

She wants you to validate the legal materials to find out if they’re still good law. Carry out the assignment and print your research results. It’s OK to print out only the first few pages if you get a lot of hits. (Note: For the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure select your first hit Exact Match and print out the first page.)

VII. Company and Financial Research A. Locate the company headquarters, address, and

telephone number for eBay, the online auction house. Print samples of your research results.

B. Print the first two pages of the latest quarterly (10Q) report for Dell Computer Corporation.

VIII. Retrieve Public Records A. Your attorney needs to find expert witnesses on the

effects of drug interactions for a liability case. Print information on two individuals with expertise on the subject of drug interaction.

B. Your attorney needs to find tax information for properties owned by Allianz Properties Partnership Ltd. in Texas. Find and print the address of the partnership, and the property records for the properties.

Graded Project 3

When you’ve completed this project, assemble your printouts and written paragraphs and send them along with the answer sheet to the school in the envelope provided.

Please Note:

In order to ensure that you have included all the required assignments, label each assignment with the appropriate roman numeral and letter if applicable. Paper clip the papers for each assignment together.

Expectations for This Project

Student should be able to perform factual, business, and legal research on the Internet; understand how a paralegal uses the Internet in a practice environment; start a lexis.com research session; formulate a search request; search for doc- uments; search and retrieve primary and secondary legal sources; verify the accuracy of citations using Shepard's citation service; locate, profile, and investigate people and companies; conduct financial and business research; and find factual resources.

Grading Criteria for This Project

Content 100%

I. Building a judge profile 5%

II. Performing company research 5%

III. Evaluating Internet information quality 5%

IV. Formulate a Search Request 10%

V. Searching and retrieving primary and secondary legal materials 25%

VI. Verifying the accuracy of case law and statutes 15%

VII. Company and financial research 15%

VIII. Retrieving public records 20%

CALR Project4

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Graded Project

CALR Project Answer Sheet

Comments_______________________________________________________________________

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When you’ve completed this assignment, send your graded project, including printouts, to the school in the envelope provided in this shipment.

Good luck with your project.

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