Finding and using the appropriate legal materials can help social researchers design and execute their research more appropriately as well as assist mental health practitioners seeking answers to legal questions that their practice increasingly presents. Where can social researchers and mental health practitioners go to learn these techniques? Doing Legal Research will enable researchers and practitioners to develop a proficiency in using legal materials by describing how to use the law library to find, cite, and track cases; statutes passed by the state legislatures or Congress; legislative history of these statutes; and administrative rules, regulations, and decisions promulgated by state and federal administrative agencies (such as the Environmental Protection Agency). In addition, the book includes exercises that give readers an opportunity to go into the law library and test developing skills on genuine legal questions. After reading this book, researchers will not only have the skills that will ensure the legal relevance of their initial research question but also the ability to conduct their own evaluation of the legal materials.

Finding and using the appropriate legal materials can help social researchers design and execute their research more appropriately as well as assist mental health practitioners seeking answers to legal questions that their practice increasingly presents. Where can social researchers and mental health practitioners go to learn these techniques? Doing Legal Research will enable researchers and practitioners to develop a proficiency in using legal materials by describing how to use the law library to find, cite, and track cases; statutes passed by the state legislatures or Congress; legislative history of these statutes; and administrative rules, regulations, and decisions promulgated by state and federal administrative agencies (such as the Environmental Protection Agency). In addition, the book includes exercises that give readers an opportunity to go into the law library and test developing skills on genuine legal questions. After reading this book, researchers will not only have the skills that will ensure the legal relevance of their initial research question but also the ability to conduct their own evaluation of the legal materials.

Successful advocacy approaches are essential for the practice of law. Lawyers, law professors, judges, and other legal commentators have offered numerous recommendations for how trial lawyers can persuade juries, including techniques in verbal and non-verbal communication, attorney demeanour, and so forth. These recommendations have been put into trial practice handbooks and are frequently taught in law schools as part of the trial advocacy curriculum. However, they often rely on popular assumptions or intuition rather than social and behavioural science. Research is needed to differentiate intuition and speculation from scientific proof of efficacy. This book fills this critical gap by reviewing the scientific support for popular advocacy recommendations. It first summarises trial commentators' recommendations, then reviews the scientific support for these recommendations, and finally evaluates the recommendations in light of the scientific support. Research is culled from not only trial and simulated trial settings, but also other social and behavioural settings. Topics include attorney demeanour, verbal and non-verbal communications, the attorney-client relationship, and storytelling (narrative techniques). This book will appeal to researchers in psychology, communications, linguistics, and other social sciences, as well as trial commentators and practising attorneys.