LEGAL RESEARCH

Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to

support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of
action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a problem and concludes with the application and
communication of the results of the investigation."
The processes of legal research vary according to the country and the legal system involved. However,
legal research generally involves tasks such as:
1. Finding primary sources of law, or primary authority, in
given jurisdiction (cases, statutes, regulations, etc.).
2. Searching secondary authority (for example, law reviews, legal dictionaries, legal treatises, and
legal encyclopedias such as American Jurisprudence and Corpus Juris Secundum), for
background information about a legal topic.
3. Searching non-legal sources for investigative or supporting information.
Legal research is performed by anyone with a need for legal information, including lawyers,
law librarians, and paralegals. Sources of legal information range from printed books, to free legal
research websites (like Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute, Findlaw.com, Martindale
Hubbell or CanLII) and information portals to fee database vendors such as Wolters
Kluwer, LexisNexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg Law. Law libraries around the world provide research
services to help their patrons find the legal information they need in law schools, law firms and other
research environments. Many law libraries and institutions provide free access to legal information on the
web, either individually or via collective action, such as with the Free Access to Law Movement.
OBJECTIVES OF LEGAL RESEARCH
1. To discover new facts.
2. To test and verify old facts.
3. To analyze the facts in new theoretical framework.
4. To examine the consequences of new facts or new principles of law; or judicial decisions.
5. To develop new legal research tools or apply tools of other disciplines in the area of law.
6. To propound new legal concept.
7. To analyze law and legal institutions from the point of view of history.
8. To examine the nature and scope of new law or legal institution.
9. To ascertain the merits and demerits of old law or institution and to give suggestions for a new law or
institution in place of old one.
10. To ascertain the relationship between legislature and judiciary and to give suggestions as to how one
can assist the other in the discharge of one’s duties and responsibilities and
11. To develop the principles of interpretation for critical examination of statues.

SIGNIFICANCE OF LEGAL RESEARCH

In modern time, law has assumed much significance. It provides for and dominates almost all activities of
human beings, it has been accepted that law is perhaps most important instrument of social change. When
an individual deals with his property or he enters into employment or he causes injury to some one, he
fails to pay his dues or he deals with his spouse and children or the government affects his property or
personal rights, he comes in contact with law and either he or his opponent obtains remedy in accordance
with existing law and where there is no law, according to the discretion of the court. The significance of
research may be based on justice, equity and good conscience, thus this may be summed up as follows.13
1. It helps the government in formulating suitable laws to pursue its economic and social policies.

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2. It helps in solving various operational and planning problems pertaining to business, industry and tax.
3. It helps the courts in solving the problems without much delay and in such a way that the problem may
not re-cure at all or at least in near future.
4. It helps the legal practitioner in taking a decision as to how he should tackle the problem in hand.

SOCIAL VALUE AND LEGAL RESEARCH

Every society or country has its own traditions, culture and values. With the passage of time, changes do
take place in the existing traditions, culture and values. But they rarely degenerate completely, and new
set of values, traditions and culture come in to existence. In such a situation, it becomes very significant
to know, whether the scope of legal research should be confined to the traditions and values of the
country or should it go beyond that limit and pave the way for a new set of values and culture? Ordinarily
no researcher can or ought to go beyond that limit because he cannot be insensitive to these traditions,
values or laws. He can rarely dare to break the boundaries of tradition, value or culture simply by taking
in to consideration the value, culture and tradition of other country. Thus it would not be wrong to say
that traditions, values or culture exercise significant influence on the scope of a legal research. However
due to great deal of globalization, the effect of culture, value or traditions prevailing in other countries or
societies cannot be ignored. They are not always harmful in character. Many a time they are of great help
and on that basis, new values may be accepted, e.g. before the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, dissolution of a
Hindu marriage was a rare phenomenon. But after it, it has been accepted by the Hindu society even
though a good number of persons still abhor it, because they find dissolution of marriage somewhat alien
to their perception of marriage. It is, therefore, necessary that the researcher must formulate such rules
and principles which are easily acceptable to society. In the world of Paton, “If the law lags behind
popular standards, it fails into disrepute, if the legal standards are too high there are great difficulties of
enforcement.”14 For a researcher, the caution given by Prof. Julius Stone is equally significant:
“Attention came to be increasingly directed to the law’s effects on the complex of attitudes, behavior,
organization, environment, skills and powers involved in the maintenance of particular society or kind of
society and conversely on the effects of these upon the particular legal order. In so far as a particular legal
order is itself part of the social order in which it arises, the inter-relation involved include the influences
of extra- legal elements of the social order on the information, operation, change and disruption of the
legal order, as well as the influence of the legal order for particular posts, kind and state of the legal
(order) on the extra-legal elements.

KIND OF LEGAL RESEARCH

Legal research work may be mainly divided in two kinds:
1. Doctrinal or the Traditional research or
2. Non- doctrinal or Empirical research

STEPS FOR CONDUCTING EFFECTIVE LEGAL RESEARCH

A Legal Research is generally defined as the process of determining a legal question. As per the Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, research is,
“A CAREFUL STUDY OF A SUBJECT, ESPECIALLY TO FIND OR DISCOVER NEW FACTS
ABOUT IT.”
The very objective of research which is ‘legal’ in nature is to find an authority that will aid the legal
problem in question. Thus, every research is driven by a question or a problem which gives rise to the

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need of researching on this problem. It is this same problem that determines the mode of conducting the
research.
1. Identifying the legal proposition for conducting research upon.
2. Solving of Research Problem by taking the help of primary resources (statutes) and secondary
materials (commentaries, case laws, research paper and more)
3. Checking the authorities of the resources. For example making sure that any cited judgment is
not overruled.
4. Analysis of resources collected.
It is these stages which make a legal research, or any research for that matter, effective. The most
important stage in this is the identification and formulation of a research problem which drives the entire
research and molds it into a comprehensive form.
Legal research just like any other research origins with a research problem. As mentioned above, it is this
same research problem, which would later be determining the methodology of the legal research. Thus, a
research problem to any legal research is very essential and imperative. Without this, a legal research will
always be incomplete and purposeless.
While trying to seek a befitting research question, we begin from a point of not knowing or by the drive
of wanting to know more. This research question must be very basic, open-ended and straight-forward. As
correctly remarked by Frances K. Stage & Karen Manning, “the research question as the foundation of the
study, defines the research paradigm that forms the assumption of the study, identifies the literature from
which the research emerges and to which it contributes, defines the methodology utilized and suggests
techniques to be employed throughout the research.”
The next step is solving of the found Research Problem. This stage commences with the identification of
methodology. The methodology refers to the procedure through which a researcher intends to gather
information (primary and secondary), for the purpose of answering the research question.
It is suggested to the researchers to develop a research proposal which would clarify the research work
which is to be undertaken. This is also known as developing a hypothesis. A hypothesis shapes the legal
research effectively and ensures that the researcher doesn’t get lost in the endeavor of finding answer to
the research problem. Thus, a hypothesis provides a roadmap as to where the researcher should look into
for carrying on his further research.
The process of collection of data can be done in 2 major ways i.e. Quantitative Research (Doctrinal) and
Qualitative Research (Non-Doctrinal). For a researcher to determine as to which one of the modes of
research he should conduct for the collection of data, there are certain factors which must be considered.
These factors are:
• What kind of information do you intend to collect or use for your research?
• What do you intend to do with the information collected?
• What kind of results do you plan to get?
• What do you intend to do with the results?
Upon finding answers to these questions deftly, a researcher will be able to proceed with the collection of
data in the most efficient and effective manner. By adhering to these legal research processes, the
researcher benefits in the following ways:
• Legal writing becomes highly organized and structured.
• Saves a lot of time as it avoids the repetition of work.
• Helps in capturing newer ideas which the researcher may come across in the process of
analysis and interpretation of data.

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• Aids in encountering a writer’s block by providing a stepped approach.

IMPORTANCE OF LEGAL RESEARCH IN LEGAL PRACTICE

The ability to conduct legal research is essential for lawyers, regardless of area or type of practice. The
most basic step in legal research is to find the leading case governing the issues in question. As most
researchers know, this is far more difficult than it sounds.
The lawyer’s understanding and analysis of a case often begin in the research stage when she identifies
the relevant facts and determines the legal issues that must be researched. This analysis continues and is
refined as they decide where, how, and what to search. As they find seemingly relevant legal materials,
they must understand them and how they apply to the facts of their case. This research provides a crucial
analytical foundation that will inform their decisions for the remainder of the case.
Legal Research Can Have Various Sources:
▪ Primary Source
Primary authorities are the rules of law that are binding upon the courts, government, and individuals.
Examples: constitutions, statutes, regulations, treaties, court orders, administrative regulations, policy
material.
▪ Persuasive Primary Source
Commentaries on the law that do not have the binding effect but aid in explaining what the law is or
should be. Examples: primary authority, which is not binding on the courts, viz. opinions of the judges,
attorney General, law minister, a ministry of parliamentary affairs, primary authorities from a foreign
jurisdiction.
▪ Secondary Source
Commentaries, law journals or periodicals, articles, textbooks, legal encyclopedia, legal dictionary,
annotations, legal opinions, surveys, legislative history Secondary sources are important in legal research
because they point the researcher to primary sources of the law
Research is considered to be more objective, methodical, well-determined scientific process of
investigation. Through research, a decision maker can quickly get a summary of the current scenario,
which improves his/her information base for making sound decisions affecting future operations of
organizations. It is useful to accelerate the decision-making power and it alone can make possible the
identification of the determinants.

OBJECTIVES OF LEGAL RESEARCH

1. To analyze the law by reducing, breaking and separating the law into separate elements: It
can be as simple as examining and explaining new statutes and statutory schemes or as complex as
explaining, interpreting and criticizing specific cases or statutes.
2. To blend the distinct elements of cases and statutes together into coherent or useful legal
standards or general rules: The product of this research is the legal standard that is consistent
with, explains, or justifies a group of specific legal decisions.
3. To look at doctrinal or theoretical issues: The research finding is applied in advising courts or
clients about the application of legal doctrine to specific cases, transactions, or other legal events.
It may also criticize judicial opinions and in the case of conflicts between the decisions of a
different court, suggests the resolution to those conflicts.
4. To provide teaching materials for students: The end products include books and modules. This
is to understand the legal doctrine and the law as it is.

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5. To acquire an understanding of the legal subject while arguing for a better way of doing
things: A researcher who performs this type of research critics and comments legal doctrine and
practices from the perspective of different sciences likes economics, politics, and sociology
The key to success in researching legal issues is realizing that research is a process. You cannot memorize
a million cases, and you are not looking for a needle in a haystack. But you can master the overall process
of research. As a lawyer, you need to base your analysis on the law: judicial opinions, statutes and
constitutions, and administrative law.
Legal research will be unlike any research you have previously done because legal research requires you
to use legal analysis. This analysis will tell you which issues to research and how to use the sources you
find to solve the client’s problem. Without understanding legal analysis, you may be able to perform the
mechanical functions of research, but you will not be able to understand the results of the research.
Another unique aspect of legal research is that often there will be no clear answer to the question you are
researching. Instead, you will find pieces to a puzzle, and you will have to use legal analysis to fit the
pieces together.
There is no magic to it, just an interwoven process of research, analysis, and writing that enables
you to be called a lawyer.