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How to Conduct Legal Research

September 21, 2021

Conducting legal research can challenge even the most skilled law practitioners.

As laws evolve across jurisdictions, it can be a difficult to keep pace with every legal development. Equally daunting is the ability to track and glean insights into stakeholder strategies and legal responses. Without quick and easy access to the right tools, the legal research upon which case strategy hinges may face cost, personnel, and litigation outcome challenges.

Bloomberg Law’s artificial intelligence-driven tools drastically reduce the time to perform legal research. Whether you seek quick answers to legal research definitions, or general guidance on the legal research process, Bloomberg Law’s Core Litigation Skills Toolkit has you covered.

What is legal research?

Legal research is the process of uncovering and understanding all of the legal precedents, laws, regulations, and other legal authorities that apply in a case and inform an attorney’s course of action.

Legal research often involves case law research, which is the practice of identifying and interpreting the most relevant cases concerning the topic at issue. Legal research can also involve a deep dive into a judge’s past rulings or opposing counsel’s record of success.

Research is not a process that has a finite start and end, but remains ongoing throughout every phase of a legal matter. It is a cornerstone of a litigator’s skills.

[Learn how our integrated, time-saving litigation research tools allow litigators to streamline their work and get answers quickly.]

Where do I begin my legal research?

Beginning your legal research will look different for each assignment. At the outset, ensure that you understand your goal by asking questions and taking careful notes. Ask about background case information, logistical issues such as filing deadlines, the client/matter number, and billing instructions.

It’s also important to consider how your legal research will be used. Is the research to be used for a pending motion? If you are helping with a motion for summary judgment, for example, your goal is to find cases that are in the same procedural posture as yours and come out favorably for your side (i.e., if your client is the one filing the motion, try to find cases where a motion for summary judgment was granted, not denied). Keep in mind the burden of proof for different kinds of motions.

Finally, but no less important, assess the key facts of the case. Who are the relevant parties? Where is the jurisdiction? Who is the judge? Note all case details that come to mind.

What if I’m new to the practice area or specific legal issue?

While conducting legal research, it is easy to go down rabbit holes. Resist the urge to start by reviewing individual cases, which may prove irrelevant. Start instead with secondary sources, which often provide a prevailing statement of the law for a specific topic. These sources will save time and orient you to the area of the law and key issues.

Litigation Practical Guidance provides the essentials including step-by-step guidance, expert legal analysis, and a preview of next steps. Source citations are included in all Practical Guidance, and you can filter Points of Law, Smart Code®, and court opinions searches to get the jurisdiction-specific cases or statutes you need.

Searching across Points of Law will help to get your bearings on an issue before diving into reading the cases in full. Points of Law uses machine learning to identify key legal principles expressed in court opinions, which are easily searchable by keyword and jurisdiction. This tool helps you quickly find other cases that have expressed the same Point of Law, and directs you to related Points of Law that might be relevant to your research. It is automatically updated with the most recent opinions, saving you time and helping you quickly drill down to the relevant cases.

How do I respond to the opposing side’s brief?

Whether a brief is yours or that of the opposing party, Bloomberg Law’s Brief Analyzer is an essential component in the legal research process. It reduces the time spent analyzing a brief, identifying relevant authorities, and preparing a solid response.

To start, navigate to Brief Analyzer available from the Bloomberg Law homepage, within the Litigation Intelligence Center , or from Docket Key search results for briefs.

Simply upload the opposing side’s brief into the tool, and Brief Analyzer will generate a report of the cited authorities and arguments contained in the brief.

You can easily view a comparison with the brief and analysis side by side. It will also point you directly to relevant cases, Points of Law, and Practical Guidance to jump start your research.

[ How to Write a Legal Brief – Learn how to shorten the legal research cycle and give your legal brief a competitive advantage.]

How to optimize your search.

Crafting searches is a critical skill when it comes to legal research. Although many legal research platforms, including Bloomberg Law, offer natural language searching, terms and connectors (also called Boolean) searching is still a vital legal research skill and should be used when searching across court opinions, dockets, Points of Law, and other primary and secondary sources.

When you conduct a natural language search, the search engine applies algorithms to rank your results. Why a certain case is ranked as it is may not be obvious. This makes it harder to interpret whether the search is giving you everything you need. It is also harder to efficiently and effectively manipulate your search terms to zero in on the results you want. Using Boolean searching gives you better control over your search and greater confidence in your results.

The good news? Bloomberg Law does not charge by the search for court opinion searches. If your initial search was much too broad or much too narrow, you do not have to worry about immediately running a new and improved search.

Follow these tips when beginning a search to ensure that you do not miss relevant materials:

• Make sure you do not have typos in your search string.
• Search the appropriate source or section of the research platform. It is possible to search only within a practice area, jurisdiction, secondary resource, or other grouping of materials.
• Make sure you know which terms and connectors are utilized by the platform you are working on and what they mean – there is no uniform standard set of terms of connectors utilized by all platforms.
• Include in your search all possible terms the court might use, or alternate ways the court may address an issue. It is best to group the alternatives together within a parenthetical, connected by OR between each term.
• Consider including single and multiple character wildcards when relevant. Using a single character wildcard (an asterisk) and/or a multiple character wildcard (an exclamation point) helps you capture all word variations – even those you might not have envisioned.
• Try using a tool that helps you find additional relevant case law. When you find relevant authority, use BCITE on Bloomberg Law to find all other cases and/or sources that cite back to that case. When in BCITE, click on the Citing Documents tab, and search by keyword to narrow the results. Alternatively, you can use the court’s language or ruling to search Points of Law and find other cases that addressed the same issue or reached the same ruling.

[Bloomberg Law subscribers can access a complete checklist of search term best practices . Not a subscriber? Request a Demo .]

How can legal research help with drafting or strategy?

Before drafting a motion or brief, search for examples of what firm lawyers filed with the court in similar cases. You can likely find recent examples in your firm’s internal document system or search Bloomberg Law’s dockets. If possible, look for things filed before the same judge so you can get a quick check on rules/procedures to be followed (and by the same partner when possible so you can get an idea of their style preferences).

Careful docket search provides a wealth of information about relevant cases, jurisdictions, judges, and opposing counsel. On Bloomberg Law, type “Dockets Search” in the Go bar or find the dockets search box in the Litigation Intelligence Center .

If you do not know the specific docket number and/or court, use the docket search functionality Docket Key . Select from any of 20 categories, including motions, briefs, and orders, across all 94 federal district courts, to pinpoint the exact filing of choice.

Dockets can also help you access lots of information to guide your case strategy. For example, if you are considering filing a particular type of motion, such as a sanctions motion, you can use dockets to help determine how frequently your judge grants sanctions motions. You can also use dockets to see how similar cases before your judge proceeded through discovery.

If you are researching expert witnesses, you can use dockets to help determine if the expert has been recently excluded from a case, or whether their opinion has been limited. If so, this will help you determine whether the expert is a good fit for your case.

Dockets are a powerful research tool that allow you to search across filings to support your argument. Stay apprised of docket updates with the “Create Alert” option on Bloomberg Law.

Dive deeper into competitive research.

For even more competitive research insights, dive into Bloomberg Law’s Litigation Analytics – this is available in the Litigation tab on the homepage. Data here helps attorneys develop litigation strategy, predict possible outcomes, and better advise clients.

To start, under Litigation Analytics , leverage the Attorney tab to view case history and preview legal strategies the opposition may practice against you. Also, within Litigation Analytics, use the Court tab to get aggregate motion and appeal outcome rates across all federal courts, with the option to run comparisons across jurisdictions, and filter by company, law firm, and attorney.

Use the Judge tab to glean insights from cited opinions, and past and current decisions by motion and appeal outcomes. Also view litigation analytics in the right rail of court opinions.

Docket search can also offer intel on your opponent. Has your opponent filed similar lawsuits or made similar arguments before? How did those cases pan out? You can learn a lot about an opponent from past appearances in court.

How do I validate case law citations?

Checking the status of case law is essential in legal research. Rely on Bloomberg Law’s proprietary citator, BCITE. This time-saving tool lets you know if a case is still good law.

Under each court opinion, simply look to the right rail. There, you will see a thumbnail icon for “BCITE Analysis.” Click on the icon, and you will be provided quick links to direct history (opinions that affect or are affected by the outcome of the case at issue); case analysis (citing cases, with filter and search options), table of authorities, and citing documents.

How should I use technology to improve my legal research?

A significant benefit of digital research platforms and analytics is increased efficiency. Modern legal research technology helps attorneys sift through thousands of cases quickly and comprehensively. These products can also help aggregate or summarize data in a way that is more useful and make associations instantaneously.

For example, before litigation analytics were common, a partner may have asked a junior associate to find all summary judgment motions ruled on by a specific judge to determine how often that judge grants or denies them. The attorney could have done so by manually searching over PACER and/or by searching through court opinions, but that would take a long time. Now, Litigation Analytics can aggregate that data and provide an answer in seconds. Understanding that such products exist can be a game changer. Automating parts of the research process frees up time and effort for other activities that benefit the client and makes legal research and writing more efficient.

[Read our article: Six ways legal technology aids your litigation workflow .]

Tools like  Points of Law ,  dockets  and  Brief Analyzer  can also increase efficiency, especially when narrowing your research to confirm that you found everything on point. In the past, attorneys had to spend many hours (and lots of money) running multiple court opinion searches to ensure they did not miss a case on point. Now, there are tools that can dramatically speed up that process. For example, running a search over Points of Law can immediately direct you to other cases that discuss that same legal principle.

However, it’s important to remember that digital research and analytical tools should be seen as enhancing the legal research experience, not displacing the review, analysis, and judgment of an attorney. An attorney uses his or her knowledge of their client, the facts, the precedent, expert opinions, and his or her own experiences to predict the likely result in a given matter. Digital research products enhance this process by providing more data on a wider array of variables so that an attorney can take even more information into consideration.

[Get all your questions answered, request a Bloomberg Law demo , and more.]

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How to do legal research in 3 steps

Knowing where to start a difficult legal research project can be a challenge. But if you already understand the basics of legal research, the process can be significantly easier — not to mention quicker.

Solid research skills are crucial to crafting a winning argument. So, whether you are a law school student or a seasoned attorney with years of experience, knowing how to perform legal research is important — including where to start and the steps to follow.

What is legal research, and where do I start? 

Black's Law Dictionary defines legal research as “[t]he finding and assembling of authorities that bear on a question of law." But what does that actually mean? 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. For example, attorneys must conduct legal research if they need court opinions — that is, case law — to back up a legal argument they are making in a motion or brief filed with the court.

Alternatively, lawyers may need legal research to provide clients with accurate legal guidance . In the case of law students, they often use legal research to complete memos and briefs for class. But these are just a few situations in which legal research is necessary.

Why is legal research hard?

Each step — from defining research questions to synthesizing findings — demands critical thinking and rigorous analysis.

1. Identifying the legal issue is not so straightforward. Legal research involves interpreting many legal precedents and theories to justify your questions. Finding the right issue takes time and patience.

2. There's too much to research. Attorneys now face a great deal of case law and statutory material. The sheer volume forces the researcher to be efficient by following a methodology based on a solid foundation of legal knowledge and principles.

3. The law is a fluid doctrine. It changes with time, and staying updated with the latest legal codes, precedents, and statutes means the most resourceful lawyer needs to assess the relevance and importance of new decisions.

Legal research can pose quite a challenge, but professionals can improve it at every stage of the process . 

Step 1: Key questions to ask yourself when starting legal research

Before you begin looking for laws and court opinions, you first need to define the scope of your legal research project. There are several key questions you can use to help do this.

What are the facts?

Always gather the essential facts so you know the “who, what, why, when, where, and how” of your case. Take the time to write everything down, especially since you will likely need to include a statement of facts in an eventual filing or brief anyway. Even if you don't think a fact may be relevant now, write it down because it may be relevant later. These facts will also be helpful when identifying your legal issue.

What is the actual legal issue?

You will never know what to research if you don't know what your legal issue is. Does your client need help collecting money from an insurance company following a car accident involving a negligent driver? How about a criminal case involving excluding evidence found during an alleged illegal stop?

No matter the legal research project, you must identify the relevant legal problem and the outcome or relief sought. This information will guide your research so you can stay focused and on topic.

What is the relevant jurisdiction?

Don't cast your net too wide regarding legal research; you should focus on the relevant jurisdiction. For example, does your case deal with federal or state law? If it is state law, which state? You may find a case in California state court that is precisely on point, but it won't be beneficial if your legal project involves New York law.

Where to start legal research: The library, online, or even AI?

In years past, future attorneys were trained in law school to perform research in the library. But now, you can find almost everything from the library — and more — online. While you can certainly still use the library if you want, you will probably be costing yourself valuable time if you do.

When it comes to online research, some people start with free legal research options , including search engines like Google or Bing. But to ensure your legal research is comprehensive, you will want to use an online research service designed specifically for the law, such as Westlaw . Not only do online solutions like Westlaw have all the legal sources you need, but they also include artificial intelligence research features that help make quick work of your research

Step 2: How to find relevant case law and other primary sources of law

Now that you have gathered the facts and know your legal issue, the next step is knowing what to look for. After all, you will need the law to support your legal argument, whether providing guidance to a client or writing an internal memo, brief, or some other legal document.

But what type of law do you need? The answer: primary sources of law. Some of the more important types of primary law include:

• Case law, which are court opinions or decisions issued by federal or state courts
• Statutes, including legislation passed by both the U.S. Congress and state lawmakers
• Regulations, including those issued by either federal or state agencies
• Constitutions, both federal and state

Searching for primary sources of law

So, if it's primary law you want, it makes sense to begin searching there first, right? Not so fast. While you will need primary sources of law to support your case, in many instances, it is much easier — and a more efficient use of your time — to begin your search with secondary sources such as practice guides, treatises, and legal articles.

Why? Because secondary sources provide a thorough overview of legal topics, meaning you don't have to start your research from scratch. After secondary sources, you can move on to primary sources of law.

For example, while no two legal research projects are the same, the order in which you will want to search different types of sources may look something like this:

• Secondary sources . If you are researching a new legal principle or an unfamiliar area of the law, the best place to start is secondary sources, including law journals, practice guides , legal encyclopedias, and treatises. They are a good jumping-off point for legal research since they've already done the work for you. As an added bonus, they can save you additional time since they often identify and cite important statutes and seminal cases.
• Case law . If you have already found some case law in secondary sources, great, you have something to work with. But if not, don't fret. You can still search for relevant case law in a variety of ways, including running a search in a case law research tool.

Once you find a helpful case, you can use it to find others. For example, in Westlaw, most cases contain headnotes that summarize each of the case's important legal issues. These headnotes are also assigned a Key Number based on the topic associated with that legal issue. So, once you find a good case, you can use the headnotes and Key Numbers within it to quickly find more relevant case law.

• Statutes and regulations . In many instances, secondary sources and case law list the statutes and regulations relevant to your legal issue. But if you haven't found anything yet, you can still search for statutes and regs online like you do with cases.

Once you know which statute or reg is pertinent to your case, pull up the annotated version on Westlaw. Why the annotated version? Because the annotations will include vital information, such as a list of important cases that cite your statute or reg. Sometimes, these cases are even organized by topic — just one more way to find the case law you need to support your legal argument.

Keep in mind, though, that legal research isn't always a linear process. You may start out going from source to source as outlined above and then find yourself needing to go back to secondary sources once you have a better grasp of the legal issue. In other instances, you may even find the answer you are looking for in a source not listed above, like a sample brief filed with the court by another attorney. Ultimately, you need to go where the information takes you.

Step 3: Make sure you are using ‘good’ law

One of the most important steps with every legal research project is to verify that you are using “good" law — meaning a court hasn't invalidated it or struck it down in some way. After all, it probably won't look good to a judge if you cite a case that has been overruled or use a statute deemed unconstitutional. It doesn't necessarily mean you can never cite these sources; you just need to take a closer look before you do.

The simplest way to find out if something is still good law is to use a legal tool known as a citator, which will show you subsequent cases that have cited your source as well as any negative history, including if it has been overruled, reversed, questioned, or merely differentiated.

For instance, if a case, statute, or regulation has any negative history — and therefore may no longer be good law — KeyCite, the citator on Westlaw, will warn you. Specifically, KeyCite will show a flag or icon at the top of the document, along with a little blurb about the negative history. This alert system allows you to quickly know if there may be anything you need to worry about.

Some examples of these flags and icons include:

• A red flag on a case warns you it is no longer good for at least one point of law, meaning it may have been overruled or reversed on appeal.
• A yellow flag on a case warns that it has some negative history but is not expressly overruled or reversed, meaning another court may have criticized it or pointed out the holding was limited to a specific fact pattern.
• A blue-striped flag on a case warns you that it has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court or the U.S. Court of Appeals.
• The KeyCite Overruling Risk icon on a case warns you that the case may be implicitly undermined because it relies on another case that has been overruled.

Another bonus of using a citator like KeyCite is that it also provides a list of other cases that merely cite your source — it can lead to additional sources you previously didn't know about.

Perseverance is vital when it comes to legal research

Given that legal research is a complex process, it will likely come as no surprise that this guide cannot provide everything you need to know.

There is a reason why there are entire law school courses and countless books focused solely on legal research methodology. In fact, many attorneys will spend their entire careers honing their research skills — and even then, they may not have perfected the process.

So, if you are just beginning, don't get discouraged if you find legal research difficult — almost everyone does at first. With enough time, patience, and dedication, you can master the art of legal research.

Thomson Reuters originally published this article on November 10, 2020.

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Legal Research Strategy

Preliminary analysis, organization, secondary sources, primary sources, updating research, identifying an end point, getting help, about this guide.

This guide will walk a beginning researcher though the legal research process step-by-step. These materials are created with the 1L Legal Research & Writing course in mind. However, these resources will also assist upper-level students engaged in any legal research project.

How to Strategize

Legal research must be comprehensive and precise.  One contrary source that you miss may invalidate other sources you plan to rely on.  Sticking to a strategy will save you time, ensure completeness, and improve your work product. 

Follow These Steps

Running Time: 3 minutes, 13 seconds.

Make sure that you don't miss any steps by using our:

• Legal Research Strategy Checklist

If you get stuck at any time during the process, check this out:

• Ten Tips for Moving Beyond the Brick Wall in the Legal Research Process, by Marsha L. Baum

Understanding the Legal Questions

A legal question often originates as a problem or story about a series of events. In law school, these stories are called fact patterns. In practice, facts may arise from a manager or an interview with a potential client. Start by doing the following:

• Read anything you have been given
• Analyze the facts and frame the legal issues
• Assess what you know and need to learn
• Note the jurisdiction and any primary law you have been given
• Generate potential search terms

Jurisdiction

Legal rules will vary depending on where geographically your legal question will be answered. You must determine the jurisdiction in which your claim will be heard. These resources can help you learn more about jurisdiction and how it is determined:

• Legal Treatises on Jurisdiction
• LII Wex Entry on Jurisdiction

This map indicates which states are in each federal appellate circuit:

Getting Started

Once you have begun your research, you will need to keep track of your work. Logging your research will help you to avoid missing sources and explain your research strategy. You will likely be asked to explain your research process when in practice. Researchers can keep paper logs, folders on Westlaw or Lexis, or online citation management platforms.

Organizational Methods

Tracking with paper or excel.

Many researchers create their own tracking charts.  Be sure to include:

• Search Date
• Topics/Keywords/Search Strategy
• Citation to Relevant Source Found
• Save Locations
• Follow Up Needed

Consider using the following research log as a starting place: 

• Sample Research Log

Tracking with Folders

Westlaw and Lexis offer options to create folders, then save and organize your materials there.

• Lexis Advance Folders
• Westlaw Edge Folders

Tracking with Citation Management Software

For long term projects, platforms such as Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, or Refworks might be useful. These are good tools to keep your research well organized. Note, however, that none of these platforms substitute for doing your own proper Bluebook citations. Learn more about citation management software on our other research guides:

• Guide to Zotero for Harvard Law Students by Harvard Law School Library Research Services Last Updated Sep 12, 2023 300 views this year

Types of Sources

There are three different types of sources: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary.  When doing legal research you will be using mostly primary and secondary sources.  We will explore these different types of sources in the sections below.

Secondary sources often explain legal principles more thoroughly than a single case or statute. Starting with them can help you save time.

Secondary sources are particularly useful for:

• Learning the basics of a particular area of law
• Understanding key terms of art in an area
• Identifying essential cases and statutes

Consider the following when deciding which type of secondary source is right for you:

• Scope/Breadth
• Depth of Treatment
• Currentness/Reliability

For a deep dive into secondary sources visit:

• Secondary Sources: ALRs, Encyclopedias, Law Reviews, Restatements, & Treatises by Catherine Biondo Last Updated Apr 12, 2024 4863 views this year

Legal Dictionaries & Encyclopedias

Legal dictionaries.

Legal dictionaries are similar to other dictionaries that you have likely used before.

• Black's Law Dictionary
• Ballentine's Law Dictionary

Legal Encyclopedias

Legal encyclopedias contain brief, broad summaries of legal topics, providing introductions and explaining terms of art. They also provide citations to primary law and relevant major law review articles.  

Here are the two major national encyclopedias:

• American Jurisprudence (AmJur) This resource is also available in Westlaw & Lexis .
• Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS)

Treatises are books on legal topics.  These books are a good place to begin your research.  They provide explanation, analysis, and citations to the most relevant primary sources. Treatises range from single subject overviews to deep treatments of broad subject areas.

It is important to check the date when the treatise was published. Many are either not updated, or are updated through the release of newer editions.

To find a relevant treatise explore:

• Legal Treatises by Subject by Catherine Biondo Last Updated Apr 12, 2024 3878 views this year

American Law Reports (ALR)

American Law Reports (ALR) contains in-depth articles on narrow topics of the law. ALR articles, are often called annotations. They provide background, analysis, and citations to relevant cases, statutes, articles, and other annotations. ALR annotations are invaluable tools to quickly find primary law on narrow legal questions.

This resource is available in both Westlaw and Lexis:

• American Law Reports on Westlaw (includes index)
• American Law Reports on Lexis

Law Reviews & Journals

Law reviews are scholarly publications, usually edited by law students in conjunction with faculty members. They contain both lengthy articles and shorter essays by professors and lawyers. They also contain comments, notes, or developments in the law written by law students. Articles often focus on new or emerging areas of law and may offer critical commentary. Some law reviews are dedicated to a particular topic while others are general. Occasionally, law reviews will include issues devoted to proceedings of panels and symposia.

Law review and journal articles are extremely narrow and deep with extensive references. 

To find law review articles visit:

• Law Journal Library on HeinOnline
• Law Reviews & Journals on LexisNexis
• Law Reviews & Journals on Westlaw

Restatements

Restatements are highly regarded distillations of common law, prepared by the American Law Institute (ALI). ALI is a prestigious organization comprised of judges, professors, and lawyers. They distill the "black letter law" from cases to indicate trends in common law. Resulting in a “restatement” of existing common law into a series of principles or rules. Occasionally, they make recommendations on what a rule of law should be.

Restatements are not primary law. However, they are considered persuasive authority by many courts.

Restatements are organized into chapters, titles, and sections.  Sections contain the following:

• a concisely stated rule of law,
• comments to clarify the rule,
• hypothetical examples,
• explanation of purpose, and
• exceptions to the rule  

To access restatements visit:

• American Law Institute Library on HeinOnline
• Restatements & Principles of the Law on LexisNexis
• Restatements & Principles of Law on Westlaw

Primary Authority

Primary authority is "authority that issues directly from a law-making body."   Authority , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).   Sources of primary authority include:

• Constitutions
• Statutes 

Regulations

Access to primary legal sources is available through:

• Bloomberg Law
• Free & Low Cost Alternatives

Statutes (also called legislation) are "laws enacted by legislative bodies", such as Congress and state legislatures.  Statute , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).

We typically start primary law research here. If there is a controlling statute, cases you look for later will interpret that law. There are two types of statutes, annotated and unannotated.

Annotated codes are a great place to start your research. They combine statutory language with citations to cases, regulations, secondary sources, and other relevant statutes. This can quickly connect you to the most relevant cases related to a particular law. Unannotated Codes provide only the text of the statute without editorial additions. Unannotated codes, however, are more often considered official and used for citation purposes.

For a deep dive on federal and state statutes, visit:

• Statutes: US and State Codes by Mindy Kent Last Updated Apr 12, 2024 3245 views this year
• 50 State Surveys

Want to learn more about the history or legislative intent of a law?  Learn how to get started here:

• Legislative History Get an introduction to legislative histories in less than 5 minutes.
• Federal Legislative History Research Guide

Regulations are rules made by executive departments and agencies. Not every legal question will require you to search regulations. However, many areas of law are affected by regulations. So make sure not to skip this step if they are relevant to your question.

To learn more about working with regulations, visit:

• Administrative Law Research by AJ Blechner Last Updated Apr 12, 2024 601 views this year

Case Basics

In many areas, finding relevant caselaw will comprise a significant part of your research. This Is particularly true in legal areas that rely heavily on common law principles.

Running Time: 3 minutes, 10 seconds.

Unpublished Cases

Up to  86% of federal case opinions are unpublished. You must determine whether your jurisdiction will consider these unpublished cases as persuasive authority. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure have an overarching rule, Rule 32.1  Each circuit also has local rules regarding citations to unpublished opinions. You must understand both the Federal Rule and the rule in your jurisdiction.

• Federal and Local Rules of Appellate Procedure 32.1 (Dec. 2021).
• Type of Opinion or Order Filed in Cases Terminated on the Merits, by Circuit (Sept. 2021).

Each state also has its own local rules which can often be accessed through:

• State Bar Associations
• State Courts Websites

First Circuit

• First Circuit Court Rule 32.1.0

Second Circuit

• Second Circuit Court Rule 32.1.1

Third Circuit

• Third Circuit Court Rule 5.7

Fourth Circuit

• Fourth Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Fifth Circuit

• Fifth Circuit Court Rule 47.5

Sixth Circuit

• Sixth Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Seventh Circuit

• Seventh Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Eighth Circuit

• Eighth Circuit Court Rule 32.1A

Ninth Circuit

• Ninth Circuit Court Rule 36-3

Tenth Circuit

• Tenth Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Eleventh Circuit

• Eleventh Circuit Court Rule 32.1

D.C. Circuit

• D.C. Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Federal Circuit

• Federal Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Finding Cases

Headnotes show the key legal points in a case. Legal databases use these headnotes to guide researchers to other cases on the same topic. They also use them to organize concepts explored in cases by subject. Publishers, like Westlaw and Lexis, create headnotes, so they are not consistent across databases.

Headnotes are organized by subject into an outline that allows you to search by subject. This outline is known as a "digest of cases." By browsing or searching the digest you can retrieve all headnotes covering a particular topic. This can help you identify particularly important cases on the relevant subject.

Running Time: 4 minutes, 43 seconds.

Each major legal database has its own digest:

• Topic Navigator (Lexis)
• Key Digest System (Westlaw)

Start by identifying a relevant topic in a digest.  Then you can limit those results to your jurisdiction for more relevant results.  Sometimes, you can keyword search within only the results on your topic in your jurisdiction.  This is a particularly powerful research method.

One Good Case Method

After following the steps above, you will have identified some relevant cases on your topic. You can use good cases you find to locate other cases addressing the same topic. These other cases often apply similar rules to a range of diverse fact patterns.

• in Lexis click "More Like This Headnote"
• in Westlaw click "Cases that Cite This Headnote"

to focus on the terms of art or key words in a particular headnote. You can use this feature to find more cases with similar language and concepts.  ​

Ways to Use Citators

A citator is "a catalogued list of cases, statutes, and other legal sources showing the subsequent history and current precedential value of those sources.  Citators allow researchers to verify the authority of a precedent and to find additional sources relating to a given subject." Citator , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).

Each major legal database has its own citator.  The two most popular are Keycite on Westlaw and Shepard's on Lexis.

• Keycite Information Page
• Shepard's Information Page

Making Sure Your Case is Still Good Law

This video answers common questions about citators:

For step-by-step instructions on how to use Keycite and Shepard's see the following:

• Shepard's Video Tutorial
• Shepard's Handout
• Shepard's Editorial Phrase Dictionary
• KeyCite Video Tutorial
• KeyCite Handout
• KeyCite Editorial Phrase Dictionary

Using Citators For

Citators serve three purposes: (1) case validation, (2) better understanding, and (3) additional research.

Case Validation

Is my case or statute good law?

• Parallel citations
• Prior and subsequent history
• Negative treatment suggesting you should no longer cite to holding.

Better Understanding

Has the law in this area changed?

• Later cases on the same point of law
• Positive treatment, explaining or expanding the law.
• Negative Treatment, narrowing or distinguishing the law.

Track Research

Who is citing and writing about my case or statute?

• Secondary sources that discuss your case or statute.
• Cases in other jurisdictions that discuss your case or statute.

Knowing When to Start Writing

For more guidance on when to stop your research see:

• Terminating Research, by Christina L. Kunz

Automated Services

Automated services can check your work and ensure that you are not missing important resources. You can learn more about several automated brief check services.  However, these services are not a replacement for conducting your own diligent research .

• Automated Brief Check Instructional Video

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You may reproduce any part of it for noncommercial purposes as long as credit is included and it is shared in the same manner. 

• Last Updated: Sep 21, 2023 2:56 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/law/researchstrategy

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Legal Research Basics: Key books

Legal research basics.

• Guide outline
• Step 1: What is your research need?
• Step 2: Map out your research strategy
• Step 3: Undertake preliminary research
• Step 4: Do the research and evaluate the results
• Step 5: Finalise your research outcomes
• General legal writing skills
• I can just Google, right?
• Study guides
• Finding treaties
• Citing treaties
• Current awareness
• The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot
• International taxation
• MLL444 - CyberLaw

Related Guides

• Legal Referencing
• Legal Abbreviations
• Researching Secondary Law
• Researching Case Law
• Researching Legislation
• Law and Legal Research Hub

Email your Librarians

Listed below is a selection of useful legal research textbooks which can be used in addition to your prescribed resources.

If you need help with accessing e-books check out the e-book's webpage .

There are several key legal writing books. Explore the Legal Writing Skills page for key books and writing tips.

Legal Research

Legal Research Skills: An Australian Law Guide (2024) This guide is designed to support students undertaking legal studies and contribute to the development of research skills in Australian law schools.

Laying down the law by David Harmer et al. (2024) The 12th edition has been extensively revised throughout, including discussion on recent developments in case law and legislation, such as the Legislation Interpretation Act 2021 (SA) and continuing developments following the High Court's decision in Farah Constructions Pty Ltd v Say-Dee Pty Ltd . Other current issues, such as constitutional recognition of Australia's First Nations peoples and the implications for legal research and practice of the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence programs, are also considered.

The New Lawyer by Nickolas James; Rachael Field; Jackson Walkden-Brown (2024) The New Lawyer, 3rd Edition has been updated to ensure that first year law students do not feel overwhelmed by the transition to law school. This book addresses the law Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) and outlines what students should know, understand and be able to do at the conclusion of their first year of study.

Connecting with law by Michelle Sanson, Thalia Anthony (2022) This book introduces students to the foundations of law in a thought-provoking way, challenging them to think critically, question ideas and connect with the law.

Foundations of the Australian legal system : history, theory and practice by Augusto Zimmermann, Gabriël Moens (2023) An introduction to the Australian legal system. Offering a wide range of topics found in most foundations of law units of study, this text covers the basic building blocks of the legal system, including the nature of law, legal referencing, a consideration of ‘precedent’ and the principles of statutory interpretation. It details the long history of the common law and describes the contribution of leading jurists to its development.

Research and statutory interpretation : a custom publication for Deakin University edited by Daniel Goldsworthy, Michelle Bendall (2021)

Part one: Introduction -- Part two: Studying law in Australia -- Part three: Academic legal writing -- Part four: The Australian legal system -- Part five: Case law and precedents -- Part six: Legislation and Statutory interpretation -- Part seven: Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities -- Part eight: Secondary sources of law -- Part nine: Legal referencing -- Part ten: The essential legal toolkit – Index.

Understanding the Australian legal system by John Carvan (2022) This book is an ideal text for first year law students and those studying legal concepts at secondary school. It also assumes no prior knowledge of the subject, making it a great resource for students in other disciplines requiring a concise introduction to Australian law. Presented in an easy-to-read format that complements the book’s emphasis on clearly explained basic principles.

Nemes and Coss' effective legal research (2021)

This practical book is an indispensable guide to mastering the techniques and strategies that are vital for successful legal research and writing. The authors canvass a wide variety of electronic and print based resources relevant to Australian law and provide worked examples based on contextual problems and pointers to potential dangers. Helpful illustrations, flowcharts and diagrams familiarise readers with the environment in which they will be undertaking research

Essential Skills for First Year Law Students by Samantha Kontra (2022)

This book describes and teaches essential legal skills and is designed to accompany a first year level introductory course taught to law students. Content is structured in an approachable way and tips and tricks are included so skills can be honed while also absorbing the whole of the first year curriculum.

Learning Law by Anthony Marinac et al (2021)

Learning Law is an accessible and engaging introduction to Australian law for students considering a career in the legal profession. This text teaches students how to deal with legislation and cases, focusing on core topics and contextualisation.

Statutory interpretation : principles and context by Kath Hall, Claire Macken (2021) Statutory interpretation has become the most important aspect of legal practice in Australia today, with many areas of law determined solely by statute. A strong understanding of the law and principles of statutory interpretation is essential for studying and practising law. This text provides readers with an up-to-date analysis on the process and principles of statutory interpretation in Australia, together with a discussion on the Australian legislative process and how legislation operates.

Modern statutory interpretation : framework, principles and practice by Jeffrey Barnes et al (2023) Statutory interpretation is both a distinct body of law governing the determination of the meaning of legislation and a task that requires a set of skills. It is thus an essential area of legal practice, education and research. Modern Statutory Interpretation: Framework, Principles and Practice is an original, clear, coherent and research-based account of contemporary Australian statutory interpretation. Written by experts in the field, the book provides a comprehensive coverage of statutory interpretation law as well as examining related areas.

Legal Referencing by Anita Stuhmke (2019)

Correct legal referencing is an essential skill for students, academics and other legal writers. In this indispensable guide, the author explains the ‘hows and whys’ of good legal referencing and writing. In this fifth edition, the author discusses how to cite legal and non-legal sources. The citation requirements of the fourth edition of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation are clearly explained. Additionally, ‘how to’ examples are provided together with a discussion of citation management systems.

Context and Method in Australian Law by Russell Hinchey (2019)

This textbook takes an innovative and novel approach to the teaching and learning of first-year law students. It is underpinned by active student learning though an inquiry-guided learning approach.

Legal problem solving and syllogistic analysis : a guide for foundation law students by Kenneth Yin, Anibeth Desierto (2016)

Understanding how to go about solving legal problems is a critical skill law students require in order to achieve success at law school and later in professional practice. This innovative text is a guide to developing students' critical thinking in solving legal problems through the application of the principles of logic. The authors explain how syllogistic analysis provides the underlying basis for legal problem solving using the IRAC method commonly taught in foundation law studies.

Legislation and statutory interpretation by Kath Hall, Claire Macken (2015)

Covers the relevance of legislation and statutory interpretation; legislation as a primary source of law ; the format of legislation; the legislative process ; the courts' approach to interpretation ; answering problem questions; how to research legislation.

A practical guide to legal research by Jay Sanderson, Kim Kelly (2017)

A Practical Guide to Legal Research, 4th Edition, is a concise and accessible guide to legal research. It presents the essential skills of legal research in Australian Law and International Law, and provides focused examples that allow readers immediate practice. The Guide moves logically through the process of legal research by actually showing the reader how to do legal research, so is therefore an ideal resource for law students, legal information professionals and legal professionals.

Foundations of Australian Law by Callie Harvey (2017)

Foundations of Australian Law is pitched exactly at the right level - in terms of both content and language - for business students, for law students, and for international students. This fifth edition has been fully updated to include changes in the law.

Principles and practice of Australian law by Jennifer Greaney (2020)

As with previous editions, one of the book’s main aims is to provide an engaging introduction to the law that teaches foundational skills and knowledge while encouraging students to think broadly and critically about the law, their study of it and how they might put it to use.

Western Legal Traditions by Martin Vranken (2015)

The rule of law constitutes the hallmark of contemporary Western society. However, public perceptions and attitudes to the law can vary in space and time. This book explores legal solutions to selected problem scenarios in their broader historical, economic, political and societal context. The focus is on the legal traditions of civil law and common law.

Exam Writing

• Mastering Law Studies and Exam Techniques by Rick Krever (2022)

Successfully navigating the particular requirements of law school and legal study can be challenging, even for the most capable of students. Mastering Law Studies and Law Exam Techniques de-mystifies the process of studying law and provides the foundations for law school success.

• Law student survival guide : 9 steps to law study success by Claire Macken (2009)

Now in its second edition, author Claire Macken draws on her experience as both a student and lecturer in law to provide practical study skills suggestions for university law students.

How to Write Law Essays and Exams by S. I. Strong (2018)

How to Write Law Essays and Exams provides law students with a practical and proven method of analysing and answering essay and exam questions. The book focuses on those questions that give students the most trouble, namely problem questions, but its techniques are equally applicable to other types of essays.

Students' guide to legal writing, law exams and self assessment. by Enid Campbell, Richard Fox, Melissa de Zwart (2010)

This popular work by experienced law teachers continues to offer law students succinct but essential practical advice on to how to prepare well researched and written work required for assessment in law courses and the strategies for effective preparation and sitting of law exams.

Advanced Research Methods

Researching and writing in law by Terry Hutchinson (2018)

Researching and Writing in Law, 4th Edition includes an updated legal research guide. It maps the developments that have occurred and provides keys to the fundamental electronic sources of legal research, as well as exploring traditional doctrinal methodologies. Included in this edition are extensive checklists for locating and validating the law in Australia, England, Canada, the United States and New Zealand as well as China, India and the European Union.

Computational legal studies : the promise and challenge of data-driven research by Ryan Whalen (editor) (2020)

Featuring contributions from a diverse set of experts, this thought-provoking book offers a visionary introduction to the computational turn in law and the resulting emergence of the computational legal studies field. It explores how computational data creation, collection, and analysis techniques are transforming the way in which we comprehend and study the law, and the implications that this has for the future of legal studies.

Empirical legal research : a primer by Kees van den Bos (2020)

This exciting textbook introduces the basic tenets and methodologies of empirical legal research. Explaining how to initiate and conduct empirical research projects, how to evaluate the methods used and how to analyze and engage with the results, Kees van den Bos provides a vibrant and reliable primer for students and practitioners looking to engage actively in legal research.

Empirical Legal Research by Frans L. Leeuw; R. Jennissen; Hans Schmeets (2016)

Empirical Legal Research describes how to investigate the roles of legislation, regulation, legal policies and other legal arrangements at play in society. It is invaluable as a guide to legal scholars, practitioners and students on how to do empirical legal research, covering history, methods, evidence, growth of knowledge and links with normativity. This multidisciplinary approach combines insights and approaches from different social sciences, evaluation studies, Big Data analytics and empirically informed ethics.

An introduction to empirical legal research by Lee Epstein & Andrew D. Martin (2014)

An Introduction to Empirical Legal Research introduces that methodology in a legal context, explaining how empirical analysis can inform legal arguments; how lawyers can set about framing empirical questions, conducting empirical research, analyzing data, and presenting or evaluating the results. The fundamentals of understanding quantitative and qualitative data, statistical models, and the structure of empirical arguments are explained in a way accessible to lawyers with or without formal training in statistics.

Research methods for law by Mike McConville and Wing Hong Chui (editors) (2017)

This text introduces undergraduates and postgraduate students to available methods of research - legalistic, empirical, comparative, and theoretical - drawing on actual research projects as examples.

Professional Legal Skills

Advocacy in Practice by James Glissan (2020)

This highly esteemed work, now in its 35th year of publication, has once again been written by the authoritative and well-respected author James L Glissan QC, and provides useful and practical checklists for examination, cross and address.

Learning to Litigate : A Guide for Young Lawyers by Neil Williams SC & Alison Hammond (2022) It is sometimes said that great advocates are born, not made. The central tenet of this book is that such assertions are dangerous nonsense. Modern litigation is a sophisticated business, requiring a wide range of organisational, procedural, presentational and technical legal skills. Whether it be a plea of guilty before a magistrate or a multi-party commercial dispute involving billions of dollars and dozens of lawyers for each party, each stage in the preparation and presentation of a case requires skills that must be learned, then horned.

Practical Legal Skills : Developing your clinical technique by Ross Hyams (2022)

Practical Legal Skills is an established and respected handbook for those engaged in legal training at all levels. Written by an expert author team, it covers the practical skills of lawyering, including interviewing, advising, advocacy, writing and drafting, and negotiation and mediation.

A Practical Guide to Lawyering Skills by Fiona Boyle (Editor); Deveral Capps (Editor) (2019)

Legal skills are an important and increasing part of undergraduate law degrees as well as postgraduate vocational law courses. This fully updated fourth edition continues to bring together the theory and practice of these skills in an accessible and practical context. The authors draw on their experience of teaching and of law in practice to develop the core skills taught on both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Skills covered include: written communication; mediation; opinion writing; drafting; advocacy; interviewing; negotiation; legal research.

Professional judgment for lawyers by Randall Kiser (2023) Written by the leading authority on legal decision making, Professional Judgment for Lawyers integrates empirical legal research, cognitive and social psychology, organizational behavior, legal ethics, and neuroscience to understand and improve decision making by attorneys, clients, judges, arbitrators, mediators, and juries.

Careers in law: a guide for students, graduates and professionals by Manda Raz, Erwin Loh, John Devereux (editors) (2020)

This book addresses the difficult decisions in the life of law students, graduates and young law professionals in deciding the area of legal practice to pursue as a career. This book is a practical guide for any student or current lawyer who is deciding and evaluating their future legal profession.

Law student professional development and formation : bridging law school, student, and employer goals / Neil Hamilton, Louis D. Bilionis (2022)

Law schools currently do an excellent job of helping students to 'think like a lawyer,' but empirical data show that clients, legal employers, and the legal system need students to develop a wider range of competencies. This book helps legal educators to understand these competencies and provides practical ways to build them into a law school curriculum.

Each year sees a fresh intake of judges' associates to Australia's courts. The proofing of judgments before publication is one of the most important of the many jobs they will be asked to do. It is also one of the most difficult. And yet the associate might have little or no experience in this task, and is likely to receive little, if any, training. This book exists to fill that gap.Proofing isn't just reading the judgment. It requires a particular mindset. It calls for focus and concentration, and attention to detail. And you have to know what you are looking for. This book highlights techniques for proofing a judgment effectively, things to watch out for, and traps that are easy to fall into. It also identifies many types of structural errors and ambiguities that appear frequently in judgments, and answers citation questions that won't necessarily be addressed by the court style guide.You will never look at the word "it" in the same way again.The author is uniquely positioned to write this book, having worked closely with a generation of associates to High Court judges. In a sense, the book is a distillation of all of the conversations he has had, and the questions he has most frequently found himself answering, over that time.

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The Age of Expert Testimony: Science in the Courtroom: Report of a Workshop (2002)

Chapter: 7 scientific research in the context of the legal system, 7 scientific research in the context of the legal system.

“The cross-examination process is the tool that we utilize in the courtroom along with the advocacy of lawyers. What I think is missing from some scientific research that’s done for purposes of litigation is the opportunity for there to be a true peer review process.”

— Marsha Rabiteau

EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION RESEARCH

A social scientist described a notable—and rare—success story in which a psychological insight led to substantial change in the operation of the legal system—in this case, police lineup procedures. The insight grew out of eyewitness identification research that began in the 1970s. The problem was that the identification of guilty parties by eyewitnesses had great credibility in the courtroom even though the error rate of mistaken identification was high.

Psychologists attempted without success to convince the justice system of the unreliability of the technique through the 1980s and early 1990s. As long as 25 years ago, however, extensive psychological research with eyewitness identification had begun to expose the weaknesses of the technique. Psychologists found that witnesses tended to point to the person in the lineup who looked most like the perpetrator relative to the other people in the lineup —but who was not necessarily the perpetrator. They made a relative, not an absolute, judgment. Because someone in a lineup

always looks more like the perpetrator than the other people in the lineup, witnesses tend to choose that person rather than choosing no one. By using a sequential system, in which witnesses were shown a single pic-ture at a time without knowing whether they would see any more, the accuracy rate rose significantly.

Even after this finding had been established, however, the court system resisted any changes. Psychologists tried explaining it directly to the police, testifying as expert witnesses in court, and talking to the media. But general change did not begin until DNA testing arrived in the 1990s. It soon became apparent that DNA evidence had the capacity not only to convict but to exonerate those convicted mistakenly. Criminal justice researchers were able to show that 84 percent of these mistaken convic-tions were based on eyewitness evidence. In 1997, Attorney General Janet Reno, having seen this evidence, ordered the National Institute of Justice to develop the first set of national guidelines on eyewitness evidence and to include the substantial body of findings regarding eyewitness evidence produced by research psychologists. This set in motion the substantial change that has now taken place.

The social scientist listed several factors that finally led to change: (1) the scientists had clear experimental evidence; (2) they had publicized that evidence in leading, peer-reviewed psychology journals; and (3) they developed their own policy recommendations based on evidence, learned which policy makers could effect change, and lobbied those policy makers for change.

RESEARCH DESIGNED TO INFLUENCE COURT PROCEEDINGS

The session moderator, a scientist, suggested that courts may ask several questions about research whose results are used to influence court proceedings. First, does the content of the research meet the standards for scientific evidence discussed in Daubert ? Second, is the provenance of the evidence appropriate: Is the organization or the person who did the research trustworthy? In what context was it issued?

The moderator went on to say that experts bringing evidence to trials may gather their information in two ways. The first is “before-the-fact” science, where the literature in the field is surveyed and presented by the expert. The second is “after-the-fact” science in which actual experiments or other research is done to answer a question in the context of particular litigation (such as the breast implant controversy). After-the-fact science has several virtues. It is relatively frugal, because the goal is clear and specific, and it is highly focused, so that the scientist can design the research to answer a specific question.

DOES SPONSORSHIP OF RESEARCH CAUSE BIAS?

Research that is sponsored to influence litigation, however, is regarded by the public and by segments of the research community with some cynicism. An example discussed at the workshop was the Women’s Health Professionals Study, which produced large amounts of valuable information. The study drew a firestorm of attacks in the press when the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that one of the researchers had been paid as a consultant by four legal firms representing two manufacturers of breast implants. The press also revealed that Brigham Women’s Hospital had received grants from Dow Corning to study silicone breast implants in a separate study. The publicity stimulated questions about whether sponsorship had compromised the integrity of the research. Workshop participants noted that even without evidence of bias, such controversies can pressure some research institutions to limit the funding contributions they will accept from industry, which often means that needed research is not carried out.

INDUSTRY-SPONSORED RESEARCH

A corporate lawyer said that industry has many incentives to main-tain high standards of objectivity in the research it sponsors. “Industrial science has a certain transparency,” she said. “Cooperation is key. Safety and good science are the friends of profit.” The consequences for industry of either under- or over-reporting data can be extremely expensive, she pointed out. Therefore a code of “Good Laboratory Practices” has been in force since 1979 for many research-intensive industries that mandates a variety of measures, including retaining raw data about product development for 10 years or for the life of any resulting product. In addition, she said, enforcing federal agencies (such as the EPA or the FDA) tend to monitor industry studies to ensure that they are designed properly to answer questions about safety and other pertinent issues.

Another participant described how industry-sponsored drug tests for the Food and Drug Administration are performed. “Admitting new products is one of the most critical regulatory decisions we make as a nation,” he said, “and it’s critical to get our studies right on safety and efficacy.” Drug studies are financed by the same prescription drug companies who intend to profit from the drugs; a similar process is followed for decisions about medical devices, food additives, and animal drugs. Because the format of these double-blind, placebo-controlled studies is standardized and because the FDA is often involved in the design of the studies, the agency has built up sufficient expertise and experience to produce objective and reliable results. For example, companies are required to examine

all existing studies on the topic and submit the results of those studies whether they are favorable or not. (One participant pointed out that such a sweeping approach is virtually impossible to duplicate in a judicial setting.)

THE DIFFICULTY WITH TOXIC CHEMICALS

One participant discussed the difficulty in finding objective information about toxic chemicals. Few organizations or individuals can afford to do independent studies of human populations exposed to low levels of the thousands of chemicals that are potentially toxic, so there is little independent information in the literature. The need to know more about such chemicals usually arises in reaction to a lawsuit in which an expert, perhaps using animal studies or workplace studies, begins to formulate opinions. In rare cases, the plaintiff may fund a study, but the litigation context of the testimony may bar the plaintiff’s expert evidence from admissibility. 22

“The litigation context of the research is a factor that goes to weight,” said the participant, “but I don’t think it belongs on the admissibility scale. If it did, then the expert witness for the industry ought to be able to be excluded for the same reason.” To balance the scale, he suggested, courts should require full disclosure of all possible biases, including the studies that were performed, that were not performed, and that were performed but rejected. Under present rules, the workshop participants were told, the opposing party has no discovery rights to reveal what parts of a particular study are being reported and what parts are not being reported.

STRUCTURING RESEARCH FOR LITIGATION

An engineer described his own initial reluctance to serve as an expert witness and said that he had decided to testify because of the need to “get credible technical testimony into the courtroom.” He said that the cases had differed widely in subject matter and type of procedure. Even though he accepted funding from litigants for research on several specific questions, he felt that his work was impartial, his results interesting, and his testimony consequential as evidence. He did learn that scientific research

standards are not always congruent with court admissibility standards, but he felt that the experience had been useful in providing important information for the courts, establishing objective technical testing on a controversial issue, and in learning more about the intersection of the legal and scientific worlds.

He added that he did not consider himself to be a “hired gun” or a professional witness, having participated in just three trials and one arbi-tration in 30 years. He suggested a series of simple principles by which experts could both participate meaningfully in litigation and also main-tain their integrity:

Design and perform the work on your own professional and ethical terms

Publish all results in peer-reviewed journals, irrespective of the outcome

Strive for equal objectivity whether working for the plaintiff or the defendant.

Another participant underlined the importance of doing one’s best science for use in the courtroom. One reason is that cross-examination will tend to expose any weaknesses in methodology or conclusions. Another reason, of more general consequence, is that the effects of litigation may go beyond the finding of facts in specific cases to ultimately influence public policy. Although the criteria required for regulation are often more demanding than those required for admissibility of evidence, the public discussion of issues during litigation may prompt more extensive investigation by researchers.

The federal courts are seeking ways to increase the ability of judges to deal with difficult issues of scientific expert testimony. The workshop explored the new environment judges, plaintiffs, defendants, and experts face in light of "Daubert" and "Kumho," when presenting and evaluating scientific, engineering, and medical evidence.

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Legal Research: An Overview: Secondary Sources

• Introduction
• Secondary Sources
• Courts, Case Reporters & Publication of Cases
• Mandatory v. Persuasive Authority
• Caselaw Searching
• Validating Your Research
• Statutory Codes
• Searching in the Codes
• Regulations
• Search Techniques

Why Use Secondary Sources?

Secondary sources are background materials that describe an area of law. Such sources detail and give context to the legal issue you are researching and identify relevant statutes and regulations and leading cases. Secondary sources are not themselves the law. Rather, they are a helpful way to get an overview of an area of law, to get perspective on how your specific issue fits into the broader legal context, and to get references to the leading primary sources for an area of law. Secondary sources often are the best place to begin legal research.

If you know the title of the secondary source you would like to explore, it is a good idea to go to that title directly, either in print or online. For online access, often in a database like Lexis or Westlaw, you can get to that title simply by typing it into the search box on the home page. Remember that each database has different secondary sources available.  Accordingly, you should explore different databases to see what is available and most useful for your research.

Tips for Using Secondary Sources

Many lawyers find it easier to work with print secondary sources than with online editions. This is because it is easier to skim print materials, to flip back and forth between relevant sections, and to review the table of contents so that no relevant information is overlooked. When working with print materials, keep in mind the following:

Use the index and table of contents . Typically, to determine where to look in a print resources, you will use these finding aids. The index usually is found at the back of the book or, for large multi volume sources, in a separate volume at the end of the set. You can look up keywords in the index to see where the relevant discussion appears. Most secondary sources have a table of contents at the beginning of the book and often have a more detailed table of contents for each chapter at the beginning of the chapter. Skimming the table of contents is another good way to find a relevant discussion of your issue.

Skim the sections that are proximate to relevant sections . Whenever working with any secondary source, once you find a relevant discussion of your issue, review the sections that come before and after that discussion to be sure that you are seeing all the information offered on your topic. If you fail to look at the broader context offered in the secondary source, you may miss important details, such as exceptions to the general rule, definitions specific to the topic, etc.

Review the pocket part or supplement . It is important to keep in mind that books are only as up-to-date as their publication date. Accordingly, it is common for legal materials to be updated with "pocket parts" (where updates are filed in a special "pocket" designed to hold the update) or supplemental volume. Pocket parts and supplements update the main volume and are typically at the end of the volume. Whenever you are working with a print resource, it is critical that you consult the pocket-part or any other available update.

Online resources provide a rich array of secondary sources, and it is likely that you will be working with the digital versions of certain secondary sources. The most common ways to access secondary sources in online databases are (1) through general keyword searching and (2) by browsing the available secondary sources to determine the titles that seem most relevant. " Browsing   Online Databases for Additional Secondary Sources ," on this webpage gives you instructions for accessing secondary sources in the most common databases.

The following tips will assist you in working with online secondary sources:

When reviewing results from keyword searches, make sure you are working with a relevant title . It is common when running keyword searches in large databases to get results from a wide array of sources. When you review search results, look for results from the sources that are most applicable to your issue. For example, if your question involves a civil procedure issue and you run a general search for relevant secondary source information, you will get search results from civil procedure practice guides and general legal encyclopedias, and you are also likely to get results from lots of practice guides specific to particular areas of the law from animal law to zoning. Review the results from the most relevant titles first.

Review the table of contents for the chapter in which your search result(s) appears . Whenever working with any secondary source, once you find a relevant discussion of your issue, it is important to review related sections to be sure that you are seeing all the information offered on your topic. When reviewing a search result, there is typically a table of contents link towards the top of the display. Clicking on this link will allow you to see the broader context for your search results and will help you not to miss important details, such as exceptions to the general rule, definitions specific to the topic, etc. Think of your search as helping you to get to the right neighborhood of relevant information. The table of contents helps you visit the correct address.

Once you have found a relevant title, skim the full the table of contents and look up your keywords in the index . Every online secondary source will include a table of contents, and many also have an online index. For the most relevant secondary sources, use these online tools to be sure that you are not overlooking a relevant discussion of your issue.

Commonly Used Secondary Sources

• Legal Encyclopedias
• Practice Guides
• Jury Instructions

Legal encyclopedias provide an overview of the law. Legal encyclopedias typically have a wonderful breadth of coverage, giving background information on a wide range of legal topics and areas of the law. They are often a great starting point for your research.

Legal encyclopedias may be state specific or more general. The most common general legal encyclopedias are:

• American Jurisprudence, 2d.  ( AmJur ). Law Library  KF 154 .A42 1962  (no longer updated in print as of 2020) &  Westlaw subscription database  &  Nexis Uni
• Corpus Juris Secundum  ( CJS ). Law Library  KF 154 .C56  (no longer updated in print as of 2014) &  Westlaw subscription database

California legal encyclopedias include:

• Witkin, Summary of California Law (11th ed.) , available in the Law Library at KFC80 .W5 2017 and in Westlaw  and Lexis ; and
• California Jurisprudence, 3d (Cal Jur)  available in the Law Library at KFC65 .C33 and in  Westlaw  and Lexis .

More information about legal encyclopedias can be found on the home page of the Law Library's Secondary & Practice Guides Research Guide in the section General Encyclopedias & Guides .  

Practice guides are books that go in depth on a particular area of the law. Practice guides typically are geared towards attorneys practicing in those areas, and practice guides tend to be more detailed than legal encyclopedias. Accordingly, while legal encyclopedias will provide a good starting point to get oriented to an area of law and to identify the legal issues, practice guides will assist you in developing a more comprehensive understanding of the topic and should provide even more references to cases and other primary authority.

The Law Library's Secondary & Practice Guides Research Guide  identifies hundreds of practice guides on ninety-nine different legal topics. All of the practice guides identified in that research guide are available at UCLA in print, electronically, or both. That guide also discusses other useful tools for finding practice guides.

It should be noted that, in California, one of the most popular series of practice guides are those published by the Rutter Group, commonly referred to as Rutter Guides. If you are researching California law, it is always a good idea to see if there is a Rutter Guide on your topic. The home page for the Secondary & Practice Guides Research Guide , includes a list of all the Rutter Guides available at UCLA . The Rutter Guides are also available in Westlaw .

American Law Reports (ALR) annotations provide articles on a huge array of very specific legal topics.  Each article not only discusses the topic but also includes one of the most comprehensive primary source citations available.  If you can find an ALR article on your topic, it truly can be the keys to the research kingdom.  

ALR includes seven general ALR series (ALR 1st through 7th), covering topics that tend to come up at the state level, and three federal ALR series (ALR Fed. 1st through 3rd), covering federal law topics.  ALRs are available in Westlaw and Lexis .  Westlaw's coverage is a bit more comprehensive, as Lexis does not include the ALR 1st series.

When working with ALRs, it is easy to get carried away, reviewing ALR articles on topics related to your topic but not directly on point, in the hopes of finding just what you need.  To avoid falling down the "rabbit-hole" of ALR research, you may find it useful to set a time limit to work with this resource -- maybe an hour give or take.

Draft forms are available in a variety of places including but not limited to form books; online databases such as Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg, court web sites, and agency web sites.  When working with draft forms, consider the reliability of the source.  Also, draft forms need to be adapted based on your professional judgment and the specific needs of your client.  Nonetheless, they can be a helpful starting point when you need to draft documents, such as transactional documents or documents relating to litigation.

The following resources are a useful starting point when looking for forms:

Jury instructions are often overlooked as a legal research tool.  However, jury instructions can be very useful, as they provide succinct descriptions of causes of action and defenses and typically cite to cases and statutes that identify the elements of each.  The following are useful for locating jury instructions:

• The Law Library's Secondary & Practice Guide Research Guide page on Jury Instructions ,
• Westlaw's  Jury Instructions ,
• Lexis' Jury Instructions ,
• The Manual of Model Civil Jury Instructions for the District Courts of the Ninth Circuit , 
• The Manual of Model Criminal Jury Instructions for the District Courts of the Ninth Circuit ,
• The California Civil Jury Instructions for Judges and Attorneys (CACI) , and 
• The California Criminal Jury Instructions for Judges and Attorneys (CALCRIM) .

Browsing Online Databases for Additional Secondary Sources

• Other Databases

There are a number of ways to find relevant secondary sources in Westlaw.  While it is tempting to simply click on "Secondary Sources" from the Westlaw home page, you may find more efficient to hone in on relevant sources by first exploring secondary sources by jurisdiction and/or by practice area.  If those methods don't get you want, then access the full secondary source library.

• Select the appropriate jurisdiction from the Westlaw home page. For example, to find California materials, select "State materials" and then select "California."
• From the page of jurisdiction-specific materials, look for the "Secondary Sources" menu, and select the option that will allow you to see all available secondary sources for that jurisdiction. For example, on the "California" page, click on "All California Secondary Sources" under the "Secondary Sources" menu, which will take you to a list of available secondary sources for that jurisdiction. From there, use the filters to help you find just what you need. Be mindful of links to more selections and of menus that can be expanded. For example, to find secondary sources on landlord/tenant law in California, from the California secondary sources, go to the filter marked "Topic," click on the "+" sign next to "Real Property," and select "Leases." 
• Select the appropriate practice area from the "Practice areas" tab. For example, to get to the employment law practice area page, select "Employment."
• Look for the "Resources" menu, and select "Secondary Sources," which will take you to a list of available secondary sources for that practice area.
• From there, use the filters to help you find just what you need. Be mindful of links to more information and menus that can be expanded. For example, to find Rutter publications regarding employment law, go to the filter marked "Publication Series," and select "Rutter Group."
• Select "Secondary sources" from the "Get Started" section on the Westlaw home page.
• Use the filters to help you find what you need. Be mindful of links to more information and menus that can be expanded. For example, to find federal criminal law materials, look for the section organized "By Topic" and select "Criminal Law." Then choose the filter marked "Jurisdiction," and select "Federal."

Exploring available secondary sources in Lexis is very straight forward.  

• Select "Secondary Materials" from the Lexis home page.  
• Browse secondary sources by "Content Type" or "Practice Area." You also can browse by "Federal" sources or select a state under the "State" menu.  
• Often when you make a selection from the main secondary sources page, you are taken to another page identifying selected secondary sources.  To see all of what is available be sure to look for the selection that allows you to see all titles.  For example, to see secondary sources relating to internet law, from the secondary source home page, go to the "Practice Area" menu, click on "Computer & Internet Law," and click on "All Computer & Internet Law Treatises, Guides & Jurisprudence."
• ​ Secondary sources can also be accessed by jurisdiction or by "Practice Area."  
• For example, to see secondary sources that provide guidance within the 9th circuit, access the "Federal" tab, select "9th Circuit," scroll down to the "Secondary Materials" menu, and select "All Federal Secondary Materials."  
• Similarly, to find contract law treatises, access the "Practice Area or Industry" tab, select "Contracts Law," scroll down to the "Secondary Materials" menu, and select "All Contracts Law Treatises, Practice Guides & Jurisprudence."

To explore secondary sources available in Bloomberg, follow these steps:

• Choose the "Secondary Sources" tab.
• You will see options to review "BNA Manuals," "Books & Treatises," "International Resources," and more. The BNA Manuals and BNA Portfolios definitely are worth a look, but the bulk of the secondary sources are available by selecting "Browse Books & Treatises." You will see options to "Search Books by Subject Matter," "Search Books by Publisher," or browse by practice areas. 

Secondary sources are available from many publishers. Consult the Law Library's A-Z Databases research guide for a complete listing.

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• Last Updated: Feb 2, 2024 1:31 PM
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• Journal List
• Indian J Anaesth
• v.60(9); 2016 Sep

Legal and ethical issues in research

Camille yip.

1 Department of Women's Anaesthesia, KK Women's and Children's Hospital, Bukit Timah, Singapore

Nian-Lin Reena Han

2 Division of Clinical Support Services, KK Women's and Children's Hospital, Bukit Timah, Singapore

Ban Leong Sng

3 Anesthesiology and Perioperative Sciences Academic Clinical Program, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore

Legal and ethical issues form an important component of modern research, related to the subject and researcher. This article seeks to briefly review the various international guidelines and regulations that exist on issues related to informed consent, confidentiality, providing incentives and various forms of research misconduct. Relevant original publications (The Declaration of Helsinki, Belmont Report, Council for International Organisations of Medical Sciences/World Health Organisation International Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, World Association of Medical Editors Recommendations on Publication Ethics Policies, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, CoSE White Paper, International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use-Good Clinical Practice) form the literature that are relevant to the ethical and legal aspects of conducting research that researchers should abide by when conducting translational and clinical research. Researchers should note the major international guidelines and regional differences in legislation. Hence, specific ethical advice should be sought at local Ethics Review Committees.

INTRODUCTION

The ethical and legal issues relating to the conduct of clinical research involving human participants had raised the concerns of policy makers, lawyers, scientists and clinicians for many years. The Declaration of Helsinki established ethical principles applied to clinical research involving human participants. The purpose of a clinical research is to systematically collect and analyse data from which conclusions are drawn, that may be generalisable, so as to improve the clinical practice and benefit patients in future. Therefore, it is important to be familiar with Good Clinical Practice (GCP), an international quality standard that is provided by the International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH),[ 1 ] or the local version, GCP of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (India's equivalent of US Food and Drug Administration)[ 2 ] and local regulatory policy to ensure that the research is conducted both ethically and legally. In this article, we will briefly review the legal and ethical issues pertaining to recruitment of human subjects, basic principles of informed consent and precautions to be taken during data and clinical research publications. Some of the core principles of GCP in research include defining responsibilities of sponsors, investigators, consent process monitoring and auditing procedures and protection of human subjects.[ 3 ]

ISSUES RELATED TO THE RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS

The main role of human participants in research is to serve as sources of data. Researchers have a duty to ‘protect the life, health, dignity, integrity, right to self-determination, privacy and confidentiality of personal information of research subjects’.[ 4 ] The Belmont Report also provides an analytical framework for evaluating research using three ethical principles:[ 5 ]

• Respect for persons – the requirement to acknowledge autonomy and protect those with diminished autonomy
• Beneficence – first do no harm, maximise possible benefits and minimise possible harms
• Justice – on individual and societal level.

Mistreatment of research subjects is considered research misconduct (no ethical review approval, failure to follow approved protocol, absent or inadequate informed consent, exposure of subjects to physical or psychological harm, exposure of subjects to harm due to unacceptable research practices or failure to maintain confidentiality).[ 6 ] There is also scientific misconduct involving fraud and deception.

Consent, possibility of causing harm

Based on ICH definition, ‘informed consent is a process by which a subject voluntarily confirms his or her willingness to participate in a particular trial, after having been informed of all aspects of the trial that are relevant to the subject's decision to participate’. As for a standard (therapeutic) intervention that carries certain risks, informed consent – that is voluntary, given freely and adequately informed – must be sought from participants. However, due to the research-centred, rather than patient-centred primary purpose, additional relevant information must be provided in clinical trials or research studies in informed consent form. The essential components of informed consent are listed in Table 1 [Adapted from ICH Harmonised Tripartite Guideline, Guideline for Good Clinical Practice E6(R1)].[ 1 ] This information should be delivered in the language and method that individual potential subjects can understand,[ 4 ] commonly in the form of a printed Participant Information Sheet. Informed consent is documented by means of written, signed and dated informed consent form.[ 1 ] The potential subjects must be informed of the right to refuse to participate or withdraw consent to participate at any time without reprisal and without affecting the patient–physician relationship. There are also general principles regarding risk assessment, scientific requirements, research protocols and registration, function of ethics committees, use of placebo, post-trial provisions and research publication.[ 4 ]

Essential components of an informed consent

Special populations

Informed consent may be sought from a legally authorised representative if a potential research subject is incapable of giving informed consent[ 4 ] (children, intellectual impairment). The involvement of such populations must fulfil the requirement that they stand to benefit from the research outcome.[ 4 ] The ‘legally authorised representative’ may be a spouse, close relative, parent, power of attorney or legally appointed guardian. The hierarchy of priority of the representative may be different between different countries and different regions within the same country; hence, local guidelines should be consulted.

Special case: Emergency research

Emergency research studies occur where potential subjects are incapacitated and unable to give informed consent (acute head trauma, cardiac arrest). The Council for International Organisations of Medical Sciences/World Health Organisation guidelines and Declaration of Helsinki make exceptions to the requirement for informed consent in these situations.[ 4 , 7 ] There are minor variations in laws governing the extent to which the exceptions apply.[ 8 ]

Reasonable efforts should have been made to find a legal authority to consent. If there is not enough time, an ‘exception to informed consent’ may allow the subject to be enrolled with prior approval of an ethical committee.[ 7 ] Researchers must obtain deferred informed consent as soon as possible from the subject (when regains capacity), or their legally authorised representative, for continued participation.[ 4 , 7 ]

Collecting patient information and sensitive personal information, confidentiality maintenance

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act has requirements for informed consent disclosure and standards for electronic exchange, privacy and information security. In the UK, generic legislation is found in the Data Protection Act.[ 9 ]

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations suggest that authors must ensure that non-essential identifying information (names, initials, hospital record numbers) are omitted during data collection and storage wherever possible. Where identifying information is essential for scientific purposes (clinical photographs), written informed consent must be obtained and the patient must be shown the manuscript before publication. Subjects should also be informed if any potential identifiable material might be available through media access.

Providing incentives

Cash or other benefits ‘in-kind’ (financial, medical, educational, community benefits) should be made known to subjects when obtaining informed consent without emphasising too much on it.[ 7 ] Benefits may serve as appreciation or compensation for time and effort but should not result in the inducement to participation.[ 10 ] The amount and nature of remuneration should be compared to norms, cultural traditions and are subjected to the Ethical Committee Review.[ 7 ]

ISSUES RELATED TO THE RESEARCHER

Legal issues pertaining to regulatory bodies.

Various regulatory bodies have been constituted to uphold the safety of subjects involved in research. It is imperative to obtain approval from the appropriate regulatory authorities before proceeding to any research. The constitution and the types of these bodies vary nation-wise. The researchers are expected to be aware of these authorities and the list of various bodies pertinent to India are listed in the article “Research methodology II” of this issue.

Avoiding bias, inappropriate research methodology, incorrect reporting and inappropriate use of information

Good, well-designed studies advance medical science development. Poorly conducted studies violate the principle of justice, as there are time and resources wastage for research sponsors, researchers and subjects, and undermine the societal trust on scientific enquiry.[ 11 ] The Guidelines for GCP is an international ethical and scientific quality standard for designing, conducting, recording and reporting trials.[ 1 ]

Fraud in research and publication

De novo data invention (fabrication) and manipulation of data (falsification)[ 6 ] constitute serious scientific misconduct. The true prevalence of scientific fraud is difficult to measure (2%–14%).[ 12 ]

Plagiarism and its checking

Plagiarism is the use of others' published and unpublished ideas or intellectual property without attribution or permission and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source.[ 13 ] Tools such as similarity check[ 14 ] are available to aid researchers detect similarities between manuscripts, and such checks should be done before submission.[ 15 ]

Overlapping publications

Duplicate publications violate international copyright laws and waste valuable resources.[ 16 , 17 ] Such publications can distort evidence-based medicine by double-counting of data when inadvertently included in meta-analyses.[ 16 ] This practice could artificially enlarge one's scientific work, distorting apparent productivity and may give an undue advantage when competing for research funding or career advancement.[ 17 ] Examples of these practices include:

Duplicate publication, redundant publication

Publication of a paper that overlaps substantially with one already published, without reference to the previous publication.[ 11 ]

Salami publication

Slicing of data from a single research process into different pieces creating individual manuscripts from each piece to artificially increase the publication volume.[ 16 ]

Such misconduct may lead to retraction of articles. Transparent disclosure is important when submitting papers to journals to declare if the manuscript or related material has been published or submitted elsewhere, so that the editor can decide how to handle the submission or to seek further clarification. Further information on acceptable secondary publication can be found in the ICMJE ‘Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publishing of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals’.

Usually, sponsors and authors are required to sign over certain publication rights to the journal through copyright transfer or a licensing agreement; thereafter, authors should obtain written permission from the journal/publisher if they wish to reuse the published material elsewhere.[ 6 ]

Authorship and its various associations

The ICMJE recommendation lists four criteria of authorship:

• Substantial contributions to the conception of design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content
• Final approval of the version to be published
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Authors and researchers have an ethical obligation to ensure the accuracy, publication and dissemination of the result of research,[ 4 ] as well as disclosing to publishers relevant corrections, retractions and errata, to protect scientific integrity of published evidence. Every research study involving human subjects must be registered in a publicly accessible database (e.g., ANZCTR [Australia and NZ], ClinicalTrials.gov [US and non-US], CTRI [India]) and the results made publicly available.[ 4 ] Sponsors of clinical trials must allow all study investigators and manuscript authors access to the full study data set and the right to use all study data for publication.[ 5 ] Source documents (containing trial data) and clinical study report (results and interpretation of trial) form part of the essential documentation that must be retained for a length of time prescribed by the applicable local legislation.[ 1 ] The ICMJE is currently proposing a requirement of authors to share with others de-identified individual patient data underlying the results presented in articles published in member journals.[ 18 ]

Those who have contributed to the work but do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged; some of these activities include provision of administrative support, writing assistance and proofreading. They should have their written permission sought for their names to be published and disclose any potential conflicts of interest.[ 6 ] The Council of Scientific Editors has identified several inappropriate types of authorship, such as guest authorship, honorary or gift authorship and ghost authorship.[ 6 ] Various interventions should be put in place to prevent such fraudulent practices in research.[ 19 ] The list of essential documents for the conduct of a clinical trial is included in other articles of the same issue.

The recent increase in research activities has led to concerns regarding ethical and legal issues. Various guidelines have been formulated by organisations and authorities, which serve as a guide to promote integrity, compliance and ethical standards in the conduct of research. Fraud in research undermines the quality of establishing evidence-based medicine, and interventions should be put in place to prevent such practices. A general overview of ethical and legal principles will enable research to be conducted in accordance with the best practices.

Financial support and sponsorship

Conflicts of interest.

There are no conflicts of interest.

Legal Research: Meaning, Definitions, and Example

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.

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.

A law student should learn about research to critically analyze information on a variety of legal issues.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 l egal 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.

R esearch 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.

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.

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.

Balancing Different Legal and Ethical Requirements in the Construction of Informed Consents in Qualitative International Collaborative Research Across Continents - Reflections from a Scandinavian Perspective

• Published: 27 May 2024

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• Stinne Glasdam   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0893-3054 1 ,
• Katharina Ó. Cathaoir   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1535-9134 2 &
• Sigrid Stjernswärd   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7152-9206 3  

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International research collaborations engage multiple countries, researchers, and universities. This enhances the magnitude of contextual challenges, including legal and ethical dimensions across various jurisdictions, that must be bridged in qualitative research regardless of discipline, also in the construction of informed consents. From a Scandinavian perspective, this discussion paper explores challenges pertaining to the construction of informed consents related to EU data protection legislation, to which research institutions are subject when processing data related to EU residents. Next, it discusses challenges related to different traditions in terms of handling informed consent and research participants’ integrity, including the possibilities to waive anonymity in research. In international, multidisciplinary studies where researchers also operate in relatively ‘unknown territory’, it is especially important to be aware of and reflect on (inter)national possibilities and limitations related to laws, ethics, and culture/traditions in societies and within the academic fields. The variations in laws, ethical guidelines, and traditions in different countries demand that researchers are up to date with laws and ethical guidelines in the studied countries. Their practical implementation in the countries at stake in international, collaborative research endeavours are important, especially since such regulations and guidelines are far from static and change over time. The implementation of good ethical research practice requires democratic, reflexive, and responsive processes in all phases of research. Especially the preparation phase functions as a period to increase and ensure the knowledge and legal/ethical competences of the entire research team to meet the demands in the countries at stake.

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The University of Chicago The Law School

College essays and diversity in the post-affirmative action era, sonja starr’s latest research adds data, legal analysis to discussion about race in college admissions essays.

Editor’s Note: This story is part of an occasional series on research projects currently in the works at the Law School.

The Supreme Court’s decision in June 2023 to bar the use of affirmative action in college admissions raised many questions. One of the most significant is whether universities should consider applicants’ discussion of race in essays. The Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard did not require entirely race-blind admissions. Rather, the Court explicitly stated that admissions offices may weigh what students say about how race affected their lives. Yet the Court also warned that this practice may not be used to circumvent the bar on affirmative action.

Many university leaders made statements after SFFA suggesting that they take this passage seriously, and that it potentially points to a strategy for preserving diversity. But it’s not obvious how lower courts will distinguish between consideration of “race-related experience” and consideration of “race qua race.” Sonja Starr, Julius Kreeger Professor of Law & Criminology at the Law School, was intrigued by the implication of that question, calling the key passage of the Court’s opinion the “essay carveout.”

“Where is the line?” she wrote in a forthcoming article, the first of its kind to discuss this issue in depth in the post- SFFA era. “And what other potential legal pitfalls could universities encounter in evaluating essays about race?”

To inform her paper’s legal analysis, Starr conducted empirical analyses of how universities and students have included race in essays, both before and after the Court’s decision. She concluded that large numbers of applicants wrote about race, and that college essay prompts encouraged them to do so, even before SFFA .

Some thought the essay carveout made no sense. Justice Sonia Sotomayor called it “an attempt to put lipstick on a pig” in her dissent. Starr, however, disagrees. She argues that universities are on sound legal footing relying on the essay carveout, so long as they consider race-related experience in an individualized way. In her article, Starr points out reasons the essay carveout makes sense in the context of the Court’s other arguments. However, she points to the potential for future challenges—on both equal protection and First Amendment grounds—and discusses how colleges can survive them.

What the Empirical Research Showed

After SFFA , media outlets suggested that universities would add questions about race or identity in their admissions essays and that students would increasingly focus on that topic. Starr decided to investigate this speculation. She commissioned a professional survey group to recruit a nationally representative sample of recent college applicants. The firm queried 881 people about their essay content, about half of whom applied in 2022-23, before SFFA , and half of whom submitted in 2023-24.

The survey found that more than 60 percent of students in non-white groups wrote about race in at least some of their essays, as did about half of white applicants. But contrary to what the media suggested, there were no substantial changes between the pre-and post- SFFA application cycles.

Starr also reviewed essay prompts that 65 top schools have used over the last four years. She found that diversity and identity questions—as well as questions about overcoming adversity, which, for example, provide opportunities for students to discuss discrimination that they have faced—are common and have increased in frequency both before and after SFFA.

A Personally Inspired Interest

Although Starr has long written about equal protection issues, until about two years ago, she would have characterized educational admissions as a bit outside her wheelhouse. Her research has mostly focused on the criminal justice system, though race is often at the heart of it. In the past, for example, she has assessed the role of race in sentencing, the constitutionality of algorithmic risk assessment instruments in criminal justice, as well as policies to expand employment options for people with criminal records.

But a legal battle around admissions policies at Fairfax County’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology—the high school that Starr attended—caught her attention. Starr followed the case closely and predicted that “litigation may soon be an ever-present threat for race-conscious policymaking” in a 2024 Stanford Law Review article on that and other magnet school cases.

“I got really interested in that case partly because of the personal connection,” she said. “But I ended up writing about it as an academic matter, and that got me entrenched in this world of educational admissions questions and their related implications for other areas of equal protection law.”

Implications in Education and Beyond

Starr’s forthcoming paper argues that the essay carveout provides a way for colleges to maintain diversity and stay on the right side of the Court’s decision.

“I believe there’s quite a bit of space that’s open for colleges to pursue in this area without crossing that line,” she said. “I lay out the arguments that colleges can put forth.”

Nevertheless, Starr expects future litigation targeting the essay carveout.

“I think we could see cases filed as soon as this year when the admissions numbers come out,” she said, pointing out that conservative legal organizations, such as the Pacific Legal Foundation, have warned that they’re going to be keeping a close eye on admissions numbers and looking for ways that schools are circumventing SFFA .

Starr envisions her paper being used as a resource for schools that want to obey the law while also maintaining diversity. “The preservation of diversity is not a red flag that something unconstitutional is happening,” she said. “There are lots of perfectly permissible ways that we can expect diversity to be maintained in this post- affirmative action era.”

Starr’s article, “Admissions Essays after SFFA ,” is slated to be published in Indiana Law Journal in early 2025.

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Promoting a healthy lifestyle: exploring the role of social media and fitness applications in the context of social media addiction risk

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Junfeng Liu, Promoting a healthy lifestyle: exploring the role of social media and fitness applications in the context of social media addiction risk, Health Education Research , Volume 39, Issue 3, June 2024, Pages 272–283, https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyad047

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The popularity of social networks turns them into a legal method for promoting a healthy lifestyle, which benefits not only people but also different countries’ governments. This research paper aimed to examine the Keep fitness app integrated into WeChat, Weibo and QQ as regards long-term improvements in health-related behaviors (physical activity, nutrition, health responsibility, spiritual growth, interpersonal relationships and stress management) and assess the associated risk of increased social media addiction. Students from Lishui University in China ( N  = 300) participated in this study, and they were formed into control and experimental groups. The Healthy Lifestyle Behavior Scale and Social Media Disorder Scale were used as psychometric instruments. The Keep app was found to improve respondents’ scores on the parameters of physical activity, nutrition and health responsibility ( P  = 0.00). However, the level of dependence on social media did not change in either the control or the experimental group during the year of research ( P  ≥ 0.05). It is concluded that fitness apps can be an effective tool to promote healthy lifestyles among young people in China and other countries. The feasibility of government investment in fitness apps to promote healthy lifestyles is substantiated.

• physical activity
• addictive behavior
• interpersonal relations
• science of nutrition
• stress management
• social networks
• social media
• mobile applications
• healthy lifestyle

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