Before I get into this, I would like to point something out. I'm a pretty lazy person, by definition. I mean, if it wasn't for the fact that I had a mortgage, kids, wife, and this inane desire to grow prize winning tomatoes, I'd probably just sit around, sleep and, and eat pizza and corn flakes and drink root beer (yeah, not that drizzle you buy in the grocery store - no, I'm talking a wickedly good micro brew like Caruso).
Anyway, person was whining to me (like she did most every week) about how hard legal research was and how she could never seem to get "it" or how "it" was connected or how I was able find stuff in the collection with my eyes closed. No, really, sometimes, I'd find stuff with my eyes closed just to to freak her out.
Of course, this was all brought to my mind when I was trying to help a student the other day. Seems student was working on an assignment. Seems student had waited until the 11th hour to get started and while everyone else in the class had finish, student was still slogging through the basics - like how to cite a case, how to navigate the BlueBook, how, to cite to statutes, and/or how to just find stuff.
Miserable was she.
Then she launches into the "how do you know all this?" line of bs.
It's called practice. I practice finding stuff all the time. Student didn't believe me (they never do). I said, yeah - there's not magic wand or anything - it's called practice. You want to get good any anything? Practice. Want to be a star basketball player? Shoot baskets, every day. Want to be a concert pianist? Practice playing piano, every day. Want to be a serial killer? Actually, I had a young lady come into the law library years about who told me that. Shocking but not the worst I've had to deal with.
Anyway, I've gotten good doing what I do (i.e. finding answers to legal questions) I've gotten that way by practicing finding things. Ever since I became a professional law librarian, I dedicated my time to finding answers to legal problems.
Yeah. I have.
Every day, I'd come up with scenarios and find legal resources that matched those scenarios. Crazy stuff - like how to recover for a dog bite case or or how to not get evicted in the middle of the month (having paid for a whole month) or how might a wife recover her separate property if her husband had taken the property 20 years prior, bought a bunch of art from obscure dealers which he would then sold for a huge profit when the artists died and then he'd hide the money in an off-short bank account (which he thought the wife didn't know about) and then filed for divorce and was now claiming that the monies in the off-short bank account was a joint marital account and that he held a claim to part of.
Actually, that last one was a real case - which I was able to figure out eventually and help the wife trace and recover all her separate money with the help of some creative legal research.
Then one day, I thought to create a series of 7 one-hour classes teaching pro se litigants how to find legal things. That got dull so one day I thought to create a blog and write about my exploits finding things. That got boring so I started teaching law students how a series of classes teaching people how to find legal things and you know what? I'd got better at find legal things. Yeah, it took an a while but most things are easy(ier) to find.
Student wasn't having any of it. She figured (1st year student, and all) that there was something else involved. Yeah, it's called practice, practice, practice (if I say it three times, it's on the test)- that's practice as in don't wait until you have to do something to do it. You do something every day to get good at it and then you do it some more.
That's how you get good at something. Do it every day.
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