Spring Semester 2009: A Course Offering Entitled "Foreign and International Legal Research"

Foreign & International Legal Research Seminar
Spring 2009

Taught by Roy L. Sturgeon, J.D., M.L.S., LL.M. (Chinese Law)
Foreign & International Law Librarian, Library Liaison to the Public Advocacy Center,
& Library Faculty

*** This course tentatively is scheduled to be taught in the spring semester of 2009 -- on Thursdays from 3:30 p.m. - 5:10 p.m. Any 2d or 3d year law student may register for this one-credit course.

Due to post-Cold War globalization, law practice increasingly calls on attorneys—particularly those in the world’s reigning financial center, New York—to possess effective skills in researching foreign and international law. With that in mind, this seminar aims to equip students with the basic knowledge and skills needed to conduct such research as well as to expose them to differences in legal systems and cultures. In addition, it should reinforce and enhance critical-thinking skills that they may have gained previously from other law school experiences (e.g., working as a research assistant or summer clerk, participating in a summer abroad program, serving on international moot court or law review). It will meet 100 minutes once per week for the first half of the semester, cover multiple jurisdictions (common, civil, and mixed; foreign, religious, and international), and be graded mostly by two out-of-class research exercises and one in-class oral presentation. This seminar should be helpful for students seeking jobs in various settings: public and private sectors, litigation and transactional, large and small firms, domestically and abroad.

Born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, Roy earned a B.A. (1992) from Grand View College in Iowa, a J.D. (2001) from Valparaiso University in Indiana, an M.L.S. (2005) from St. John’s University in New York, and an LL.M. (2006) in Chinese law from Tsinghua University in Beijing. He also spent a year (1997-98) as a history graduate student at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. Before starting work as a law librarian at Touro in 2006, Roy worked as a secondary school teacher in America and China, a bookseller and field interviewer in Iowa, and a law clerk in South Carolina. He has published articles about American constitutional law, Chinese libraries and librarianship, information ethics, and Hong Kong legal research (with Sergio Stone). He is writing an article about free speech in China and two books about Chinese legal history. Funded generously by an Overseas Young Chinese Forum-Gregory C. and Paula K. Chow Teaching Fellowship, Roy will also teach this research seminar as a visiting professor at Wuhan University Law School in May 2009.