Developing legal information literate law students: “That dog will hunt”

Gary Lui

Poydras, P. E. (2013). Developing legal information literate law students: “That dog will hunt”. Legal Reference Services Quarterly, 32(3), 183-201. doi:10.1080/0270319X.2013.820999

Summary
The Poydras (2013) article discusses legal information literacy skills. Most legal research instructors are law librarians or law library staff. Legal research instructors must understand how law students learn in order to teach the skill of legal information literacy to law students. One strategy to teach legal information literacy is active learning. "Legal research classes are ideal for active learning instruction because, as a skills class, most legal research instruction involves interaction and problem solving through assignments" (Poydras, 193). Other strategies also mentioned in the article to teaching legal information literacy is learning style theory and collaborative/problem-based learning. Overall, when legal research instructors use one of the teaching strategies to teach legal information literacy to law students, these law students will become competent legal researchers.

Evaluation
The Poydras article defined what is legal information literacy according to several sources, but the author could have included what is information literacy as defined by librarians too. I think the teaching methods the article shares will be effective in allowing law librarians who teach legal research to help the law students to become legal information literate. The reason why I choose this article is because it does talk about information literacy in the legal profession, even though the article does not mention how law libraries or law librarians can specifically play a role in teaching legal information literacy. Most law librarians do teach the first-year legal research course, and the article does make suggestions to legal research instructors.