Legal research is the process of finding the law that governs an activity and materials that explain or analyze that law. Legal research includes various processes ranging from gathering information to analyzing a problem’s facts and communicating the investigation results. Doing research aims to add new knowledge to the existing knowledge in an area of interest.
Understand the meaning of legal research, its dimensions, and its importance. Also, it is an example of legal research.
Legal Research Definition
Legal research means scientific and purposive investigation or inquiry of a problem or issue of any discipline. Likewise, legal research is a scientific investigation into a legal issue or problem and the process of gathering evidence or information for ascertaining an assumption or verifying some hypotheses.
Like other research activities, legal research is a systematic and methodical study directed toward developing new knowledge or verifying existing knowledge. Legal research is not merely concerned with the technical knowledge of the law. Rather, one of the purposes of legal research is to find philosophical or policy arguments in law.
Legal research is an inquiry and investigation made by judges, lawyers, and legal researchers in the quest for a deeper and fuller understanding of the true nature of legal problems.
It seeks to expound on various aspects of the legal system, the legislative and judicial process, and the nature and function of law in society. Legal research is also concerned with “the understanding and internal coherence of legal concepts and reasoning.
Legal research is not a mere description of facts but a purposive investigation to explain or interpret a legal phenomenon. It goes beyond description and requires analysis.
In this sense, it is a creative process and involves normative activities. Legal research is diligent, and continued search is for the more probably accepted answer to a legal question.
The such search involves the choice of hypothesis, the assortment ascertainment of facts, their classification, elimination of relevance, the use of both Inductive and deductive reasoning, and the assertion of a conclusion. In essence, it involves analysis of facts, ordering legal propositions and doctrines, and applying legal reasoning to conclusions.
Legal research essentially seeks to expound the logical coherence of law concepts and determine and define the terms and presuppositions used in law.
Legal research is identifying and retrieving information necessary to support judicial 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 investigation results.
The processes of legal research vary according to the country and the legal system involved. However, legal research generally suggests such tasks as:
- Find primary sources of law or central authority in a given jurisdiction (cases, statutes, regulations, etc.)
- Searching secondary authorities (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; and
- Searching non-legal sources for investigative or supporting information.
Dimensions of Legal Research
Legal research has two fundamental dimensions: creative and non-normative. Legal research is creative because it interprets theories, concepts, and rules, creates new knowledge, or enriches existing knowledge.
Legal research is also normative as it establishes the norms that apply to a particular legal system.
The normative aspect of legal research implies that the researcher should not reproduce the text of the law or describe the legal doctrine for theory; rather, he or she should state what ought to be done according to the legal point of view within a particular legal system or how the law to be applied in a particular context.
10 Importance of Legal Research
Legal research is also necessary for ascertainment of law on a given topic or subject, to highlight ambiguities and inbuilt weaknesses of law, and to critically examine legal provisions, principles, or doctrines to see consistency, coherence, and stability of law, to make suggestions for reform of the law.
- The Role of Legal Research in Modern Legal Education
- Legal Research for Law Students
- Legal Research for Practicing Lawyers
- Legal Research in Practice
- Legal Research as a Catalyst for Legal Reform
- Identifying Areas for Legal Reform
- The Process and Purpose of Legal Research
- The Mindset of a Legal Researcher
- Achieving Objectivity in Legal Research
- The Ethical Responsibilities of a Researcher
The Role of Legal Research in Modern Legal Education
Legal research is an important element of the modern system of legal education.
Legal education performs several related functions: attaining theoretical knowledge, practical training, and a general education contributing to proper legal reasoning, effective communication, and ethical responsibility. Legal research can facilitate attaining these objectives by placing law in a broader intellectual context.
Legal research methodology is important for legal researchers in many ways.
Legal research helps one use his acquired knowledge of how the law works and understand the principles that underlie the operation of the law and the legal system.
Legal Research for Law Students
A law student should learn about research to critically analyze information on a variety of legal issues.
Legal Research for Practicing Lawyers
Legal research is also important for a lawyer, who should be familiar with those areas of law in which he claims to have the expertise as a real-life problem solver. There is no denying that a lawyer should provide competent representation to a client.
Every lawyer must use fundamental legal research tools and implement an effective and efficient research plan to provide competent representation.
Legal Research in Practice
In everyday exercises, lawyers have to identify and analyze factual material, identify the legal context in which factual issues arise, identify legal issues, and apply relevant legal provisions to facts. They have to relate the central legal and factual issues to each other and identify the legal, factual, and other issues presented by documents.
They have to provide ACC-rate and insightful advice and draft documents effectively. All these investigations of factual and legal issues require legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness, and preparation from lawyers for effective representation of clients.
Legal Research as a Catalyst for Legal Reform
Legal research is critically important for initiating legal reform and change in society.
Legal research may be driven by current and proposed legislation’s social, political, and economic implications. Law must keep pace with social change. Law has to either respond to social change or initiate social change.
Because of changing social, moral, and political contexts, many laws may lose relevance or seem inadequate to meet society’s needs.
Identifying Areas for Legal Reform
Legal research can help find out the old laws that need reforms.
Legal research can initiate a new theory of law change with your help carrying existing theory. Legal research findings may help bring about desired changes in existing laws and legal institutions.
The Process and Purpose of Legal Research
Research methodology is not an end but must fit into the structure of the topic, questions, and arguments, producing good research. The purpose of any legal inquiry at the practical level should be to arrive at a legally reasoned and sound conclusion of a given factual situation.
As essential steps of methodology, the legal research analysis of the facts evaluates what legal concepts may be relevant, finds primary and secondary sources, synthesizes the relevant principles, and apply them to the research problem.
The Mindset of a Legal Researcher
Research is an intellectual exercise requiring endurance and patience. A researcher must have perseverance and a scientific frame of mind.
A researcher must be a genuine seeker of truth. He must be alert to appreciate any change in situation or facts considered in research. He must have intimate knowledge of his area of research. He must be objective in his approach. Attaining objectivity remains a great challenge to every researcher.
Achieving Objectivity in Legal Research
The findings should not be influenced by personal prejudices and biases to attain objectivity in research work. The researcher should examine the issues at hand dispassionately and must be free from personal emotions and self-interest.
The Ethical Responsibilities of a Researcher
A researcher should be open-minded and self-reflective. He should also be cautious about claims based on his research findings.
Legal Research Examples
For example, let’s take India’s juvenile justice system and compare it with that of the USA.
In this paper, the diversion and alternative measures of the juvenile justice system of the USA and India have been discussed to get an idea of how the philosophy of juvenile justice functions in a democratic country with different cultures like the USA and a developing country of monolithic culture like India from a comparative perspective.
The paper also focused on the rationality of advisory jurisdiction exercised by the Supreme Court of different countries, especially the USA, UK, Canada, Sri Lanka, and India, and discussed how these examples could be of use in India in nurturing its Constitution, democracy, and the rule of law.
The author argues that juvenile delinquency and violence against children are indications that social organization is not running correctly.
Available data suggest that juvenile delinquency in India has increased in recent years. They are involved in theft, robbery, hijacking, and extortion and have different types of deadly weapons.
Many of the arrested juveniles are members of organized criminal gangs.
Comparing the available statistics of India and the USA, the author put forward some recommendations to keep the problems at a minimum, ensuring an egalitarian society where children’s causes will be fully guaranteed.
