Guide to Researching and Writing Seminar Papers

Choosing the topic of your seminar paper is the first challenge. This step should take significant time and research. You want to do enough research to identify a subject or problem that interests you and to fully understand the subject. If you do not fully understand what you are writing about you may run into issues once you start writing and be unable to create new and innovative responses or solutions to the subject or problem.

Try the Following Steps to Start Choosing a Topic.

Use the following questions to create a list of no more than three ideas:

• What areas of law am I genuinely, honestly interested in?
• What law topics are of current interest?

Check Out News Platforms to get some ideas:

• New York Times, Law360, State Report, etc.

Select one idea and do some preliminary topical research.

• Start with some basic keywords and phrases.
• Evaluate your results:
  • Is it narrow enough to cover thoroughly?
  • Do you still find it interesting?
  • Can it say something new?
• Refining the idea until it meets the above criteria.
• The result should be a concise, one-sentence description of the topic.

Run a preliminary full search in major databases. (Westlaw, Lexis, HeinOnline, etc.)

• Start with the basic keywords and build a more refined set of search terms.
• Review articles that are based on similar topics, looking for differences with your idea.
• Consider factors such as: Perspective (e.g. political vs. technological), Conflicting Approaches or Interpretations (e.g. supportive vs. critical), Changes or New Trends (e.g. new cases or concepts)
• Check out some ways to look at perspective on a topic:

  • MACRO VIEW - Look at the problem or legal topic from a bigger scale. For example, consider a statutes larger policy goal and whether it is successful in accomplishing it.

  • DEFINITIONAL- Look at the definitions in a statute or a case. Make an argument regarding the use or the need for change to this particular legal definition and why.

  • COMPARISON - For example, compare legal standards or analysis in two different jurisdictions with similar fact patterns.

  • CAUSATION - Consider how a state or federal court's decisions or analysis might affect a statute or other court's rulings, if only persuasively.  How is precedent like this going to affect future decisions?

  • SUBSTANTIATION - Take a position on whether a legal decision was right or wrong with legal support and analysis and why.

• Evaluate whether the end result is sufficient for your paper based on your professor's instructions.

**   If it won't work, go back to step 2 and research the next idea

Finally:

• Check for any formal procedures for topic approval.
• Run the topic by the professor.  

Check Out the Lexis + 2L/3L Resource Center for tips and videos like the one below:

Also take a look at this helpful article (you can find it by title on Westlaw):

Heather Meeker, Stalking the Golden Topic: A Guide to Locating and Selecting Topics for Legal Research Papers, 1996 Utah L. Rev. 917 (1996)