What Is The Legal Research Process?

by | Last updated on January 24, 2024

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Essentially, it means that legal research is

the process you use to identify and find the laws—including statutes, regulations, and court opinions—that apply to the facts of your case

. In most instances, the purpose of legal research is to find support for a specific legal issue or decision.

What are the basic steps in the legal research process?

  1. Introduction.
  2. Step 1: Gather and Understand the Facts of Your Case.
  3. Step 2: Determine Your Legal Problem and Your Desired Outcome.
  4. Step 3: Finding Legal Information and Reading About the Law.
  5. Step 4: Legal Analysis/Legal Writing and beyond.
  6. Conclusion.

What are the 5 stages of legal research?

  • Introduction.
  • Step 1: Preliminary Analysis.
  • Step 2: Create a Research Plan.
  • Step 3: Consult Secondary Sources.
  • Step 4: Search for Authority – Statutes, Regulations, and Cases.
  • Step 5: Evaluate Your Search Strategy and Results As You Go.
  • Step 6: Update & Final Check.

How do you do legal research?

Steps for conducting effective legal research.

Identifying the legal proposition for conducting research upon

. Solving of Research Problem: Taking the help of primary resources (statutes) and secondary materials (commentaries, case laws, research paper and more)

What are the three steps in legal research?

With this in mind, the legal research process can be broken down into three basic steps:

Understanding the key details and questions of your legal issue

, finding laws and information to support your legal argument, and checking that what you’ve found is still relevant—or good law.

What are the tools of legal research?

  • 3.1.1 Westlaw International. …
  • 3.1.2 Hein Online. …
  • 3.1.3 LexisNexis. …
  • 3.1.4 JSTOR (Journal Store) …
  • 3.1.5 E-HART BOOKS PUBLISHING. …
  • 3.2 National (Indian) Online Legal Research Databases. …
  • 3.2.1 Manupatra. …
  • 3.2.2 Indlaw.

What are the six components of a legal decision?

  • Title and Citation.
  • Facts of the Case.
  • Issues.
  • Decisions (Holdings)
  • Reasoning (Rationale)
  • Separate Opinions.
  • Analysis.

What are the 14 steps of the research process?

  • Step 1: Identify the Problem. …
  • Step 2: Review the Literature. …
  • Step 3: Clarify the Problem. …
  • Step 4: Clearly Define Terms and Concepts. …
  • Step 5: Define the Population. …
  • Step 6: Develop the Instrumentation Plan. …
  • Step 7: Collect Data. …
  • Step 8: Analyze the Data.

How do you create a case file?

A case file must begin with the defendant’s full legal name. It is wise to include alias information, maiden and former names as well. Be sure to include any suffix or prefix and make certain of the correct spelling. Correct transcription of the defendant’s name is very important in subsequent searches for the file.

What are the main objectives of legal research?

Objectives of legal research


To discover new facts. To test & verify old facts. To analyze the facts in a new theoretical framework

. To examine the consequences of new facts or new principal of law or judicial decision.

How long should legal research take?

Usually, though, moderate complexity means you should be finished with the legal research within a few hours. Applying it to the fact pattern and writing a memo should take longer. I’d say

10-20 hours

is probably average, but it’s also fine if you’re going over that.

Why do lawyers do legal research?

The primary aim of conducting clear and methodical legal research is

finding the answer to a legal question in the most time effective way and knowing that you have searched in all the relevant sources

. … In legal practice it can also help to show any client that your work is accurate and that it is value for money.

What is the importance of legal research?

Legal Research is

a process designed to help you check for legal precedents

, and it can be used to find answers for various legal questions. It’s very important to do Legal Research if you want to figure out if a legal issue has any precedent or not.

What are the types of legal research?

  • 1) Descriptive Legal Research. …
  • 2) Quantitative research. …
  • 3) Qualitative Legal Research. …
  • 4) Analytical Legal Research. …
  • 5) Applied Legal Research. …
  • 6) Pure Legal Research. …
  • 7) Conceptual Legal Research. …
  • 8) Empirical Legal Research.

What is legal research report?

LEGAL RESEARCH REPORT

A

report which deals specifically with a legal problem

is said to be a legal research.

What are the tools of research?


Questionnaires, interviews, rating and attitude scales, and tests

, are the major data-gathering research tools. In the following sections and sub- sections we shall discuss these research tools. ‘Questionnaire’ is a commonly used and frequently abused tool for gathering a variety of data.

Emily Lee
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Emily Lee
Emily Lee is a freelance writer and artist based in New York City. She’s an accomplished writer with a deep passion for the arts, and brings a unique perspective to the world of entertainment. Emily has written about art, entertainment, and pop culture.