Advanced Legal Research Skills for Today’s Practitioner: Practical Applications, Advanced Statutory Research, and Guardrails for Lawyers

Paul D. Callister | University of Missouri

Paul Callister is the Director of the Leon E. Bloch Law Library at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, a position he has held for over two decades.

He also holds the position of Professor of Law, currently teaching Copyright Law, Developing Legal Research Skills, and Artificial Intelligence and the Law. Paul holds a B.A. from Brigham Young University, a J.D. from Cornell Law School, and an M.S.L.I.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His academic contributions have been recognized with the 2021 UMKC Law Marvin Lewis Rich Award for legal scholarship and teaching over a three-year period, and he is a two-time recipient of the UMKC Law Brenner Award for legal scholarship. Paul’s article, Generative AI and Finding the Law, was published in Law Library Journal in February 2025. In July of 2025, he received the award for the winning submission to the American Association of Law Libraries/Lexis Call for Papers.

With his co-author, Tove Klovning, his book Field Guide to Legal Research (2nd ed., West Academic) is forthcoming in early 2026. He frequently speaks and publishes on AI and research issues.

Shawn G. Nevers | Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School

Shawn Nevers is the Paul T. & Everette E. Schooley Director of the Howard W. Hunter Law Library at Brigham Young University where he has worked since 2006. At BYU Law, Shawn teaches Introduction to Legal Research and Writing, Introduction to Advocacy, and Advanced Legal Research and advises faculty and students on their research. His award-winning article “The Shadow Code: Statutory Notes in the United States Code” has been cited in several top law reviews and in federal court opinions.

Shawn received his J.D. magna cum laude from Brigham Young University in 2005 and his M.L.I.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006.

Richard A. Leiter | University of Nebraska College of Law

Richard Leiter is the Director of the Schmid Law Library and Marvin & Virginia Schmid Foundation Professor of Law. Although he assumed his current position in 2000, he had worked on the UNL law library staff years ago (1986-1988) as Public Services Librarian. He earned his undergraduate degree (with honors) in 1976 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, his J.D. in 1981 from Southwestern University School of Law, where he was an editor of the law review, and his MLIS in 1986 from the University of Texas at Austin.

Before coming to the College of Law, he was Associate Dean of Information Technology & Services and Professor of Law at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. and Library Director and Associate Professor at Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Prior to that he held various positions in both law firm and academic libraries on both coasts.

Professor Leiter has written widely on law library, legal research, and legal information technology issues. His most recent book, National Survey of State Laws, now in its ninth edition, is widely held by library reference collections and was named An Outstanding Resource by the New York Public Library. The seventh edition, published by WM S Hein & Co., Inc was released in January 2016 along with a database that contains all editions. In 2003 it won the prestigious Andrews Bibliographical Award from the American Association of Law Libraries and has been cited three times by the United States Supreme Court. He also has published, with Roy Mersky, two editions of a reader on law librarianship called, Spirit of Law Librarianship. He is an active scholar and has contributed to books, the Law Library Journal and numerous other law library publications. Professor Leiter is also the co-founder of the Spirit of Law Librarianship Award for Public Service, an award founded in 1991 that recognizes law librarians for their work serving their communities. The award was originally funded by royalties from the book, Spirit of Law Librarianship, a widely regarded reader in law librarianship, now in its second edition.

In 2014 Prof. Leiter was named to the Fastcase 50, in recognition of his pioneering work in citation analysis for use in online legal database search algorithms. In 2012 he was included as one of the Top 50 Law Professors Who Use Twitter. For many years he hosted an irregular podcast, Law Librarian Conversations. In 2020, Prof. Leiter was awarded the Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Section’s presitgious Frederick Charles Hicks Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Law Librarianship. He has held numerous leadership positions in national and regional law library organizations and is a frequent speaker and presenter at conferences and continuing education programs. He also serves on the steering committee of the Big10+ Law Library Alliance.

Prof. Leiter has served on the University’s Faculty Senate for twenty years and has served as a member of the Senate’s Executive Committee for several years.

I. Beginning, but not ending, with AI | 1:00pm – 1:40pm

• How GenAI works (for lawyers)
• GenAI, guardrails & ethics
• Applied problem solving: Lexis+ AI, CoCounsel, and ChatGPT-5 on concrete tasks
• Non-AI tools for more traditional research

II. Advanced statutory and legislative history research | 1:40pm – 2:30pm

• State and federal statutory research
• State and federal legislative history research

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

• Historical statutory research
• Positive law titles of the United States Code

III. Practical application of AI | 2:30pm – 3:10pm

• Using online databases
• Thinking critically about search results
• Understanding algorithms