And if students react to seemingly irrelevant print lessons by failing to internalize foundational concepts, then they will likely revert to old
research habits when they inevitably gravitate back to electronic sources to do their actual
research.88 In other words, if the process doesn't carry over to the media they're actually willing to use, then they are far less likely to actually learn the
fundamental, foundational concepts that are so critical to good
legal research.89 Instead, they may achieve mere «inert» knowledge: «the inability to apply
skills and concepts in situations other than those in which they were originally learned.»
The requisite
skills for doing so, moreover, are sufficiently distinct from domestic
legal research and reasoning that they can not be acquired either by osmosis or by simple extrapolation of domestic techniques to a transnational plane.40 Consequently, rising twenty - first century lawyers will need explicit exposure to, and instruction in, the basic LRW
skills that are
fundamental to a transnational
legal practice.
Perhaps it is because they consider it beneath them, or they are embarrassed to admit to the their lack of expertise in this
fundamental and essential
skill, but many is the time I have seen
legal research foisted off on a poor
legal assistant.