Education
Law librarians participate in the educational mission of the College of Law in a variety of ways. In addition to one-on-one instruction at the Reference Desk, librarians participate in two types of of legal research courses described below. Librarians also give presentations to seminar and substantive law courses.

College of Law Legal Research Courses:
Legal Analysis, Writing and Research
At the College of Law, legal research is introduced as part of the Legal Analysis, Writing and Research (LAWR) course taught throughout the first year. Law students attend several sessions in which a Reference Librarian discusses case reporters, statutes, citators, and secondary resources, both online and in print, along with research strategy. LexisNexis, Westlaw and other online research training is integrated into LAWR.

Advanced Legal Research Course
Advanced legal research training is offered to second- and third-year law students by College of Law Reference and Computer Services Librarians during the spring semester and one summer session. Enrollment is limited. As stated in the course description, the purpose of the Advanced Legal Research course is to permit students to acquire an in-depth knowledge of American legal resources, to familiarize students with some of the many non-legal information sources available that are of increasing importance to the legal community, and to provide a very brief introduction to the research resources of other legal jurisdictions and international law. Current print and electronic resources will be explored for the purpose of developing better, more efficient search techniques and to assist students in determining whether to use on-line resources or print resources for their research. Topics covered in class will include a review of the basic sources of legal information, techniques for accessing the desired information, and the development of personal strategies for managing information.  Students will complete advanced training sessions in Lexis and Westlaw, and the Internet.

Foreign, Comparative and International Legal Research Course
This course is offered by the Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Librarian during the spring semester and has limited enrollment. This course will familiarize students with treaty research, locating and identifying documents from international organizations and tribunals, and legal research in selected jurisdictions outside the United States. A variety of print and electronic sources and research methods in foreign and international law will be presented during class periods, some of which will be held in the library. Each student will be required to complete a pathfinder on a foreign or international law topic: selecting and evaluating relevant sources, developing a research strategy, and explaining the research process to someone unfamiliar with the topic or jurisdiction.

Outreach
The Law Library is a vast resource for conducting thorough and sophisticated research. The librarians constantly endeavor to help users make the most of the resources by providing periodic legal research refresher sessions, research guides (print and electronic), and topical pathfinders (more sophisticated research tools than research guides). In the future we hope to provide online tutorials that allow for learning research strategies at the time of need. Please make suggestions for legal research training by contacting Ted Potter, Head of Public Services, Room 238 of the law library or by e-mail at: ted-potter@uiowa.edu.