Legal Research Day at the MSBA

Deadline to Register: Thursday, September 13, 2019

8:30 - 9:30     Legal Research Basics (Mike Carlson)

Mike will provide an overview of the evolution of legal research: from Print to Search to 'Ask.' We'll discuss how this evolution is changing the way we manage a wide diversity of research tasks in an era of do-more-with-less. We'll then review the basic construction and anatomy of primary source materials: case law, statutes, regulations, municipal codes, and more.

9:45 - 10:45   Online Research (Karen Westwood)

Karen will describe how to effectively use free and low-cost online resources including Google Scholar, Fastcase (free to MSBA members), and resources from Cornell's Legal Information Institute (LII). Karen will also review resources for 'non-legal' research - finding heirs, witnesses, opposing parties, and more.

11:00 - 12:00  How to Make Your Research Count in Your Writing (Faris Rashid and Aaron Knoll)

Great legal research deserves great legal writing. This session aims to help you make your research shine in your written work. You’ll learn best practices for writing engagingly and persuasively about complex legal issues, using caselaw effectively, and synthesizing principles and trends.

Mike Carlson, Attorney Editor, Minnesota State Bar Association. Prior to joining the online services team at the MSBA, Mike served ten years at Thomson Retuers as a Reference Staff Attorney where he provided expert research support and training for lawyers, law firms, businesses and students.

Karen Westwood is the Library Director at Hennepin County Anne Grande Law Library. Before that, Karen was the Warren E. Burger Library’s head of reference. She received her M.S. in Library and Information Science in 1987 and worked in public and university libraries before launching her law library career as a circuit-riding prison law librarian for Law Library Service to Prisoners, a program of the Minnesota State Law Library, in 1990. Through the years, Westwood worked her way up at the State Law Library, but in 2004 she left to attend law school at Hamline University School of Law. After graduating with honors in 2007, Westwood spent 2 years as a corporate attorney with the Minneapolis law firm of Lindquist & Vennum, P.L.L.P., before coming to William Mitchell.

Faris Rashid, Greene Espel, represents clients in technology, intellectual-property, and trade-secret disputes. A Fortune 100 client said that Faris’s "briefs sing, and he has won the praise of many state and federal judges for his composure and agility as an oral advocate." Faris has a particular knack for understanding cutting-edge products, technologies, and business arrangements and then explaining the issues in a way that earns the court’s trust. Faris also settles business disputes before they reach a lawsuit, provides concrete advice for navigating new areas of law, and conducts probability-based risk assessments. Outside of his litigation work, Faris is consistently invited to speak at seminars including the Minnesota Technology Law Institute, the Minnesota Business Law Institute, and the Upper Midwest Employment Law Institute, and he has presented on the impact of new data-privacy regulations in the EU.

Aaron Knoll, Greene Espel, is a business litigator. He represents national and international businesses in a wide range of commercial, consumer, and class-action disputes. He also advocates for developers in regulatory and litigation matters in the renewable-energy industry. Aaron attended the University of Minnesota for college and the University of St. Thomas for law school. After law school, he clerked for Justice Christopher Dietzen of the Minnesota Supreme Court and Judge Paul Magnuson of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. For the last several years, Aaron has taught legal writing to 2Ls at St. Thomas—a subject he can’t wait to discuss.