Hello,

I am actually a law librarian who works for a large law school in the US. I have both a JD and and library degree, but I am interested in pursuing a higher degree to help me provide better service to the faculty whose research I support.

I am interested in the LLM in Legal Research programs offered by Edinburgh and Leicster because they both appear to teach the actual process of scholarly legal research, which is what the professors I work with regularly engage in.

I would like to know from anyone in these programs whether you believe it would be beneficial for the librarians who will be assisting you in your research to have an understanding of the legal research process which you go through to produce your scholarly publications.

Thanks for any advice you can provide!

I am a Edinburgh University PhD student and work closely with the LLM in Legal Research students. We all actually have a mandatory course together. Coming from a US law background (US JD) I found that the legal research programme here was much more indepth than in the US. In fact, I found all of the concepts discussed in the research class very foreign but they have been a great help as I proceed with my PhD. If my librarian in the States had understood the different methodologies and theories involved with advanced legal study I think it would have been a huge advantage as most of my pre-admission work I somewhat stumbled upon. Having guidance would have helped to avoid so much wasted time!
Professor Jo Shaw, the head of the programme, is very keen on the subject and has made great strides to integrate the legal research LLM with the PhD programme as information exchange between the two is beneficial for all of us.
Best of luck!