1. You need to find out the financial situation of a public company that a client is planning to sue. What is the most efficient way to find the company's financial information, such as its balance sheet and cash flow?
A. Do a search for the company name on an Internet search engine.
B. Look for news on the company in the financial newspapers.
C. Go to the SEC's EDGAR database and download a copy of the latest company filings.
D. Go to a financial news site, such as The Street.com or Bloomberg.com.
2. You've been asked to locate five missing individuals who witnessed an armed robbery. Where is your first stop on the Internet for this type of research?
A. White pages C. Mailing lists
B. Yellow pages D. Listservs
3. You need to find the Social Security number of a person involved in a litigation matter. What is your research strategy?
A. Use a search engine.
B. Use a CD-ROM library.
C. Use a meta index on the Internet.
D. Use a commercial database.
4. You're looking for online real estate property records on the Internet. Where would you start this research assignment?
A. Company research Web sites C. Yellow pages
B. Public records Web sites D. Federal government Web sites
5. You're applying for a paralegal job with Microsoft. They've asked you to submit a scannable résumé to them. What format would you use?
A. HTML C. WordPerfect
B. Word 2000 D. ASCII
6. You're working on a case where the client was injured in an automobile accident. You need to locate the driving record of the person who struck your client. As an efficient researcher, what is your research strategy?
A. Perform the research on the Internet only.
B. Use PACER to locate the records.
C. Perform the research using a commercial database only.
D. Perform the research using a commercial database, and if no results, use the Internet.
7. You've been asked to obtain a docket sheet in a federal court case. Client costs are an issue, and the attorney has asked that you check the Internet first. What is your next step?
A. Use PACER.
B. Tell the client federal docket sheets aren't accessible online.
C. Go to an e-filing site.
D. Use an Internet search engine to search for the docket sheet.
8. You have the name of a company, and the attorney wants to know if the company is involved in federal litigation as a plaintiff or defendant. What is your next step?
A. Go to state court sites for every state the company does business in.
B. Look in the U.S. Party/Case Index.
C. Go to FindLaw and search each federal court's database.
D. Go to www.nass.org/.
9. The system for e-filing in the courts is
A. always handled by each court individually.
B. always contracted to an independent vendor.
C. handled differently in different courts.
D. handled uniformly throughout the federal and state court system.
10. Of the following, where is the best place to look for information regarding privately held corporations?
A. The SEC's EDGAR database
B. A commercial database like Lexis.com
C. An online investment and financial site
D. A public records site
11. Your office has accepted a new plaintiff's personal injury case where the client was injured in a rear-end automobile accident. The attorney wants your help in determining the potential value of the case. What type of legal materials would you research on the Internet?
A. Practice materials C. Law reviews and treatises
B. Primary materials D. Jury verdicts and settlements
12. Which of the following is a good place to go to find court rules?
A. www.llrx.com C. www.access.gpo.gov
B. www.cpsc.gov D. www.pacer.gov/
13. What is ASCII text?
A. The Russian alphabet
B. Plain, unformatted keyboard characters
C. Text sorted by keyword
D. A computer programming language
14. Your supervising attorney has asked you to determine the procedures for subpoenaing the telephone records for a company in California. The attorney suggested that you start your assignment by reviewing secondary materials. What type of specific legal materials would you review on the Internet?
A. Practice materials C. Case law
B. Statutes D. Congressional records
15. You've been assigned to do research for a new case. The client was injured in a botched medical procedure. The attorney is looking for an expert witness who specializes in surgery. Name one method of finding expert witnesses.
A. Search PACER
B. Search NHTSA.
C. Search jury verdicts in LexisNexis.
D. Search Paralegal Today online.
16. You're on the Internet trying to locate an address for a private company in Texas as well as some addresses for individuals in California. You've checked about eight Web sites and haven't found any meaningful results. What is your next step?
A. Continue surfing from site to site until you locate the needed information.
B. Start the project over and revisit the Web sites in case you missed something.
C. Inform the supervising attorney you found nothing.
D. Log on to a commercial database such as LexisNexis or Westlaw.
17. You're working on a personal-injury case where the client was injured in an automobile accident when her seatbelt accidentally unlatched and she was ejected from the vehicle. The attorney believes the vehicle manufacturer designed the seatbelt in a defective manner. What type of information could you retrieve from the Internet to possibly back up your attorney's opinions and conclusions?
A. Trajectory studies C. Company information
B. Medical information D. Traffic safety information
18. Your supervising attorney has asked you to create a Summation database. You're having problems with building the look-up tables. How would you seek help?
A. Check AccessData's technical support Web site.
B. Ask your supervising attorney.
C. Sign up for a Lexis.com Web lecture.
D. Go to the Microsoft Knowledge Base.
19. Which of the following is an indication that a Web site's information is of questionable quality?
A. The site has a mission statement.
B. There's a link for you to contact the site's author.
C. There's no update information on the site.
D. The graphics are poor quality.
20. You found an article on the Internet and need to provide a citation to the article for a memorandum you're writing. The article is an APSA 2010 Annual Meeting Paper entitled "The Strategic Content Model of Supreme Court Opinion Writing" by Yonatan Lupu and James H. Fowler, which was published on January 5, 2010 and which you viewed on Dec. 17, 2010. You're unable to locate a printed form of this article elsewhere. What is the proper citation format for this article?
A. The Strategic Content Model of Supreme Court Opinion Writing (APSA 2010)
B. Yonatan Lupu and James H. Fowler, The Strategic Content Model of Supreme Court Opinion Writing (2010), http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu/strategic_content_model.pdf (last visited Dec. 17, 2010)
C. Yonatan Lupu and James H. Fowler, The Strategic Content Model of Supreme Court Opinion Writing,
D. Yonatan Lupu and James H. Fowler, The Strategic Content Model of Supreme Court Opinion Writing, APSA (January 5, 2010), The Internet.