Week Twelve, Part 3 - Legal Research: Bigamy in New Jersey

Our last day of regular class in Legal Research is devoted to review. Next Thursday, all 1L’s will take the final exam en mass.

Patti Ogden, our instructor, warns us that the test will be challenging. The 100 questions may come "from anything we’ve covered the past eleven weeks." Lectures. Handouts. Assigned readings. Small group work. For a one-credit class, there’s a mountain of material.

During the review, I’m amazed at how much we’ve learned. When Ogden refers to the library’s reporters and digests, I understand their purpose. I feel comfortable with shepardizing, that is, using a citator to make sure a case is still good law.

In retrospect, the research assignments each week forced us off the main path of class-to-cubicle and into “the stacks” and “compressed storage.” The lectures provided information that didn’t come up in other contexts. We learned that while all Supreme Court cases are reported, the rate of appellate decisions being published is lower: only 25-65 percent. Federal district court cases are reported even less – 10-25 percent.

While Ogden talks, I make sure I have all my weekly assignments, then arrange them in chronological order. They were hard, without a doubt, but doing them made me feel I could research like a lawyer. I was able to find statutory authority on the issue of “Can a person in New Jersey be found guilty of bigamy if one of his two marriages were a common-law marriage?” And, “If a bride calls off her wedding, can the ex-fiance sue for breach of promise to marry and return of the engagement ring?”

I smile. Will I one day have paying clients with these problems? It seems inconceivable.

Ogden ends class by telling us that the average mark on the final exam is a B. “You're all great people,” Ogden says. “But there's no denying that some of you will score higher than others.”

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