Target Audience: Any law librarian who has to conduct or train others in corporate securities research, but doesn't know where to start or how to begin Learning Outcomes: 1. Participants will be able to identify, explain, and locate the most common corporate security filings and understand the role the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plays in all of it. 2. Participants will gain the knowledge to create and perform their own corporate securities training session.
It is becoming more and more common practice for law librarians to be able to conduct business research - specifically corporate/securities research, in addition to traditional legal research - and yet many of us are terrified and intimated by such requests. Many attorneys are finding that their first assignments upon landing a job at a law firm require them to conduct basic corporate/securities research. Yet, often these attorneys are not exposed to corporate securities research while in law school, so they are turning to their librarians for assistance. Many librarians, however, whether they are in a private setting, academic setting or corporate setting, are not familiar with corporate securities research - how to conduct the research themselves nor how to train their students, faculty, or attorneys. The objective of this session is two-fold: 1) to make law librarians more valuable and marketable as research librarians by learning how to conduct basic securities research (identify filing types, the process of a company going public and trading with the SEC), and 2) to demonstrate how to draft and structure a basic securities research to present to students and attorneys (i.e., what would be too ambitious for a "Securities 101" training session, and what would make you look like a securities research rock star!).