methods of research in law

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 211 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 Sep 12, 2023 3687 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 Sep 12, 2023 2593 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 Mar 26, 2024 2094 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 Sep 12, 2023 431 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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• Last Updated: Sep 21, 2023 2:56 PM
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Legal Research Methodology: Types And Approaches of Legal Research

Legal research methodologies explore unsettled legal questions, acquire and analyze relevant information, and apply findings to solve legal problems.

Let’s understand the definition of legal research methodologies and the types and approaches to Legal research methodologies.

Understand Legal Research Methodology

What is legal research methodology.

Legal research methodologies serve three main functions, exploring a legal problem, critically describing facts and legislation, and explaining or interpreting legal issues and concepts.

Why is a methodology needed in the first place?

The methodology is a means of inquiry to achieve these purposes in a meaningful way .

In legal research, the methodology;

• is a systematic inquiry that provides information to guide legal research ,
• is the trained and scientific investigation of the principles and facts of any subject,
• helps the readers understand the research methods to discover the truth and evaluate the results’ validity,
• helps the researchers follow a consistent logic in research and prepare them to meet possible challenges,
• is also an important way to jam reliable and valid knowledge and explore the relationship between theory and practice.

Understanding research methods will help students conduct and write up their research monographs, dissertations, or theses systematically.

However, research methodology is different from research methods. ‘Research method’ usually implies all methods and techniques used to collect and process the data.

Thus, the method is a tool or technique such as a qualitative or quantitative method. It also includes interviews, case studies, or surveys.

On the other hand, research methodology refers to the body of methods that guide thinking within a specific field of study.

A methodology is a justification or rationale for the research approach and is concerned with the general strategy or approach of undertaking research.

Legal research methodology is a must.

It is vital for a researcher to know the research methodology and understand the underlying methodologies’ assumptions.

Researchers also need to know the criteria by which they can decide that certain methodologies will apply to certain problems.

Research methodology has been defined as the means of acquiring scientific knowledge. It has also been defined as a means to gather information and data to achieve a valid outcome.

Legal research methodology is simply a way of addressing and exploring unsettled legal questions or issues.

Legal research methodologies are techniques by which one acquires legally relevant information, analyzes, interprets, and applies them to resolve issues and present the findings.

Thus, legal research methodology is a scientific and systematic way to solve any legal question.

Legal research methodology also refers to rules of interpretation of legal problems and issues. It is a systematic effort to make an argument to arrive at a true or accurate account of the subject matter under consideration.

The researcher should explain properly why he uses a particular method to evaluate research results by the researcher himself or others. Adopting a particular methodology should stem from the research objective and purpose.

Types of Legal Research

Two types of Legal research are;

• Qualitative Research for Legal Research.
• Quantitative Research for Legal Research.

The main difference between qualitative and quantitative legal research is that; qualitative legal research is pure and applied research , concerned with the analysis of theories. Whereas quantitative legal research is concerned with testing the theories in the real world.

Depending upon the nature of the research question, legal research is also classified as descriptive and exploratory one.

Descriptive research attempts to describe a situation, problem, phenomenon, or behavior systematically. A description is concerned with making complicated things understandable and simple.

Exploratory research is undertaken to explore areas about which the researcher has little or no knowledge . It involves findings the reason for things, events and situations, showing why and how they have come to be what they are. Exploratory research enables the researcher to formulate problems for more in-depth study, develop hypotheses, and find the best solution.

Another popular distinction is between pure doctrinal research and non-doctrinal or empirical research.

While the former is theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge without a specific application, the latter is original work undertaken to acquire new knowledge with a specific practical application in view.

Doctrinal legal research is concerned with the analysis of legal theories, concepts, rules, and principles.

Most doctrinal legal research is based on the ‘black-letter law’ approach, which focuses on the knowledge of law found in the legal texts, legal theories, statutes, and court judgments with ‘little or no reference to the world outside the law.’

The doctrinal or ‘black-letter’ legal research aims to explain, systemize, and clarify the law on any particular topic by a distinctive mode of analysis.

In recent times, pure doctrinal legal research has been criticized for its rigidity, narrower scope, and inflexibility in addressing diverse contexts m which legal issues or situations arise and operate.

As a result, empirical or inter-disciplinary legal research emerged as a distinct type of legal scholarship in the law schools of western countries to study law in the broader social and political contexts.

This empirical and interdisciplinary legal research employs various social science and humanities methods. According to Epstein and King,

What makes research empirical is that it is based on observations of the world, in other words, data, which is just a term for facts about the world.

These facts may be historical or contemporary or based on legislation or case law, the results of interviews or surveys , or the outcomes of secondary archival research or primary data collection .

Another important classification is between qualitative and quantitative research .

Qualitative Research for Legal Research

Qualitative research is concerned with the explanation, interpretation, and understanding of phenomena or issues, or things. It relies primarily on human perception and understanding. It concerns the subjective assessment of the social or legal problem, situation, and attitude .

Qualitative research is critical in the behavioral sciences, where the aim is to discover the underlying motives of human behavior. A qualitative approach is concerned with the subjective assessment of attitudes, opinions, and behavior.

Quantitative research offers:

• richly descriptive reports of individual perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, views, and feelings,
• the meanings and interpretations are given to events and things, as well as their behavior;
• it displays how these are put together, more or less coherently and consciously,
• into frameworks that make sense of their experiences; and
• illuminates the motivations which connect attitudes and behavior, the discontinuities, or
• even contradictions between attitudes and behavior, or
• how conflicting attitudes and motivations are resolved in particular choices made.

Qualitative research is related to the analysis of some abstract idea, doctrine, or theory. It is generally used to develop new concepts or to reinterpret existing ones.

In qualitative research, researchers use analytical techniques and their views on the subject matter in question.

Qualitative research varifies the old established principles of laws. It may lead to discovering a new theory, refinement, or interpretation of an existing theory, principles, or legal issues.

On the other hand, empirical research relies on experience or observation alone, often without due regard for system and theory.

Qualitative research involves more explicit judgment, interpretation, or critical evaluation of a problem.

As far as legal study is concerned, the qualitative method is applied to analyze legal propositions or legal theories or doctrines and explore existing statutory propositions and cases in light of propositions or doctrines.

Qualitative research of law involves studying general theoretical questions about the nature of laws and legal systems, the relationship of law to justice and morality , and problems of application of law in a given society.

The main advantage of the qualitative method is that qualitative analysis draws on the interpretive skills of the researcher and opens up the possibility of more than one explanation being valid.

The main criticism of qualitative research is that it is too impressionistic and subjective. Qualitative findings rely too much on the researcher’s subjective assessment of views about what is significant.

The qualitative research findings tend to be open-ended, which is difficult to generalize: Many qualitative research works are doctrinal. Observation, interviewing, case study, examination, and analysis are the most common method of qualitative research.

Quantitative Research for Legal Research

Quantitative research for legal research is based on the measurement of quantity or amount. It consists of counting how frequently things happen. It applies to phenomena that can be expressed in terms of quantity. It is also known as the statistical method.

Because in quantitative research, researchers use an array of statistical methods and generalizations to determine the meaning of data.

It has been the dominant strategy for conducting socio-legal research. Quantitative methods often test or verify existing theories or hypotheses.

Quantitative research involves finding a solution to a real-life problem requiring an action or policy decision.

Quantitative research also tests many variables through the generation of primary data. The generalization process from sample to a population is an example of quantitative instead of qualitative research methodology.

Quantitative research can contribute new evidence, challenge old theories, and help conceptual clarification.

Usually, the quantitative approach involves generating data in quantitative form, which can be subjected to rigorous quantitative analysis formally and rigidly. Quantification can make it easier to aggregate, compare and summarise data.

Data can be collected from questionnaire surveys, fact-finding inquiries, and interviews. Data analysis is one of the important components of quantitative research.

The quantitative method is also sometimes termed an empirical approach as data are collected to test the hypothesis or examine the propositions or interpretations of findings.

Advantages of the Quantitative Legal Research Methods

• First, quantitative data are gathered by various forms of statistical techniques based on the principles of mathematics and probability. The analysis appears to be based on objective laws rather than the researcher’s values .
• Second, statistical tests of significance give researchers additional credibility in terms of their interpretations and their confidence in their findings.
• Third, quantitative data analysis provides a solid foundation for description and analysis.
• Fourth, large volumes of quantitative data can be analyzed relatively quickly, provided adequate preparation and planning have occurred in advance.
• Finally, tables and charts effectively organize quantitative data and communicate the findings to others.

The quantitative research method supplements traditional legal research to investigate the complexities of the law, legal actors, and legal activities.

Quantitative legal research is mostly applicable for conducting non-doctrinal, empirical, and socio-legal research . Objectivity remains the main aspect of quantitative research.

A set of rules or procedures should be followed in quantitative research, even though qualitative research tends to be more flexible.

While the researcher’s values and bias influence qualitative research, quantitative research seeks to report the findings objectively, and the role of the researcher is neutral.

Which One is Better – Quantitative or Qualitative Legal Research Methods?

To some extent, it depends on the training of the researcher and the nature of the research questions. But choosing one method in exclusion of others may be counterproductive for advancing legal scholarship.

Rather blending both quantitative and qualitative approaches can be the best way to accomplish the objectives of research work.

It is generally accepted that using more than one method strengthens the validity and credibility of the research.

5 Approaches to Legal Research

Legal research methodology is not particularly different from the research methodology used in other disciplines.

Nonetheless, it has some special attributes regarding source materials and ways of approaching the problems.

Researchers should be clear about the methodology and reasons for choosing a particular methodology.

Effective legal research is hardly possible without a proper understanding of research methodology . A researcher should justify the important methodological choices in their work.

Legal research may be of combination of methods for interpreting and applying legally relevant information. There are no single or universal approaches to legal research methodologies.

There are several approaches to research methodology , such as analytical, inter-disciplinary, comparative, and historical.

A particular type of methodology depends considerably upon the research question formulated and the sources of materials chosen.

Analytical Approach to Legal Research

Interdisciplinary approach to legal research, socio-legal approach to legal research, comparative approach to legal research, historical approach to legal research.

An analytical method is the most important and widely used in legal research. The analysis involves an explanation of the cause and effect of complex phenomena.

Analytical skill is crucial for any legal researcher. The analytical approach requires logical reasoning and interpreting laws to conclude .

Since laws are written in abstract and general terms by their nature, it is the researchers’ and judges’ task to apply those general rules to concrete factual circumstances, for which they apply logic and common sense to analyze and interpret the words in the law.

In most cases, the analytical approach deals with one or more legal concepts or legal theories.

Analytical research uses interpretive methods to examine cases, statutes, and other forms of law to seek out, construct, or reconstruct rules and principles.

An analytical approach is sometimes viewed as doctrinal research.

Doctrinal research of law provides a systematic exposition of the rules governing a particular legal category, analyses the relationship between the rules, explains areas of difficulty, and predicts future developments.

The sources of law have been the primary materials, law doctrines, case law, and legislation. The legal research is largely confined to an analysis of legal doctrine .

The salient characteristic of the analytical approach is its emphasis on the autonomy of law as an independent discipline or science.

Thus, the analytical approach of legal research can lead to ‘close reasoning.’

The analytical method serves the fundamental object of giving effect to the terms of a legislative instrument.

Analytical research is applied to dissect the terms of a provision, draw inferences from them, and apply the conclusions to resolve legal questions.

The most relevant aspects of the analytical approach are:

• what did the law-maker intend to achieve with the legislation under consideration?
• What is the underlying policy rationale of a piece of legislation?

In the analytical approach, the researcher should highlight the positive aspect of the law, e.g., what a legal situation is, and its normative aspect, e.g., what a legal situation should be.

Thus, it not only describes facts and circumstances but also defines parameters and interprets the facts. It involves applying critical judgment and developing one’s view of the situation.

The normative analysis concerns rational criticism and evaluation of legal doctrines and rules. Such judicial interpretation and process should only be a logical application of existing rules of law .

On the other hand, the positivistic approach holds that the conception of law is a coherent and complete system.

It implies a concerted effort to integrate disciplinary insights and apply the integrated insight to the study of problems.

The interdisciplinary approach of legal research advances the proposition that legal research ought not to content itself with the strictly legal but should also explore the interface between law and the other disciplines.

It integrates disciplines such as history, political science, economics and philosophy, and even different methodologies.

The interdisciplinary approach is distinguished from a multidisciplinary approach, which juxtaposes several disciplines without any attempt to integrate or synthesize aspects of their knowledge and perspectives.

The interdisciplinary approach requires looking at various aspects of the subject and viewing it from more than one perspective.

The interdisciplinary approach suggests the accommodation of sociology of law, economics and law, and law and technology within a single discourse to integrate and establish communicative links between disciplines.

The objective of interdisciplinary research is to combine knowledge, skills, and forms of research experience from two or several disciplines to transcend some of the theoretical and methodological limitations of the discipline in question and create a basis for developing a new form of analysis.

This is evident from integration because legal researchers and lawyers need to look at the law from a much broader angle than previously.

Inter-disciplinary research is “research designed to secure a deeper understanding of law as a social phenomenon, including research for the historical, philosophical, linguistic, economic, social or political implications of the law.”

On the other hand, it also seeks to evaluate the influence of other disciplines on legal scholarship. An interdisciplinary approach often produces results relevant to more than one discipline.

This interrelationship of disciplines is often reflected because many reputed law schools have designed their curriculum to include other subjects to explain a problem coherently and logically.

The interdisciplinary approach also suggests that social science methodologies and information are integrated into legal discourse.

The interdisciplinary approach as the interface of law and social science dates back to the Realist movement in the 1930s and 1940s. That movement highlighted the differences between ‘law in the books’ and ‘law in action.’

A sociological approach to law is one of the most characteristic features of modem jurisprudence—the socio-legal approach views law as a means of social control and change.

According to this approach, the law is essentially a social phenomenon.

The sociology of law seeks to explain the nature o law in terms of the empirical conditions within which doctrines and institutions exist in particular societies or social conditions.

Socio-legal research uses the theories and methods of social science to explore the operation of law, legal processes, and legal institutions.

The sociological approach tells us that law is a social phenomenon and works in a social setting instead of a textual approach.

According to the socio-legal approach, analysis of law is directly linked to the analysis of the social situation to which the law applies and should be put into the perspective of that situation.

It contrasts with the textual or ‘ black letter law ‘ approach, which emphasizes the text’s literal meaning. It calls for going beyond the ‘black letter law and investigating the social milieu against which law is enacted and applied.

On the relationship between law and sociology, Roger Cotterrell wrote succinctly.

Both law and sociology are concerned with the whole range of significant forms of social relationships.

And in practice, the criteria determining which relationships are significant are often similar, deriving from the same cultural assumptions or conceptions of policy relevance.

Furthermore, both legal and sociological inquiries typically seek to view these phenomena as part of, or potentially part of, an integrated social structure.

Thus, law and sociology share a fundamentally similar basic subject matter despite their radical differences in method and outlook.

Law is the practical craft of systematic control of social relations and institutions.

Sociology is the scientific enterprise that seeks systematic knowledge of them.

The socio-legal approach helps researchers to realize a closer understanding of the policy objectives of any legal rule.

The sociological views law as an emanation of social elements and depends not on state authority but on social compulsion.

The socio-legal research assesses the impact of legal doctrines upon society.

The sociological approach tries to investigate through empirical data how law and legal institutions affect human attitudes and what impact they create on society; assess the suitability of legal institutions to the needs of society.

It aims to understand legal and social phenomena, whereas the main concern of the traditional approach to jurisprudence is to undertake analytical-linguistic studies.

Using the law as an instrument of government policy requires understanding the socio-economic context in which the law works and what effects are likely to happen.

In socio-legal research, the law is considered one of the social policy tools.

A wide range of strategies is used in socio-legal research, from the statistical analysis of the survey to the interview analysis.

By using these strategies, the socio-legal approach addresses the following questions:

• what are the effects of law and the legal order on the social order?
• What are the effects of the social order on the legal order?
• What are the effects of the law on attitude , behavior, institutions, and organizations in society, maintenance, and change of society?
• What are the effects of attitudes, maintenance, behavior, institutions, and organizations in society, maintenance, and change of society on the law?

Each legal system has its history, fundamental principles and procedures, and forms of legal publication sources.

But in this globalized and interdependent world-the study of the law of other countries is assuming greater significance.

The law of foreign countries is increasingly becoming relevant in national court proceedings involving international transactions.

Interaction between various legal systems is sometimes described as a transnational legal system. The comparative method is advantageous for understanding the transnational legal system.

The comparative approach as a study of legal systems by comp comparison has assumed wider significance due to the ongoing globalization process.

With the growth of international and regional legal orders, understanding the forms and methods of comparative legal study has become essential to all those wishing to understand and engage in current legal debates.

Even one needs a comparative method to understand the law within one’s own country. The comparative method offers how the differences between the law of diverse countries and systems are analyzed.

In this way, a comparative study is appreciated for its benefit to the national legal system.

The comparative method aims to harmonize but not unify the world’s different laws and legal cultures.

Because often, the comparative approach may involve a comparison of two or more national legal systems.

But undoubtedly, comparative study helps to harmonize the laws of different countries.

In this sense, it has an international dimension.

The comparative approach takes the insider’s view on the legal systems studied and helps understand the institutional structure of concepts, thinking, and organizations of the systems in question.

The comparative method denotes different ways of addressing the same issue and finding differences. The comparison may give a fuller view of the subject under investigation.

However, the objective of the comparative method is not to draw mere similarities and dissimilarities.

Instead, it can enable a researcher to suggest a suitable solution to legal problems in light of a set of rules ideal for a given society.

The comparative method may confer the following 3 advantages:

• comparative research can throw doubts on the usefulness or firmly entrenched views;
• it may suggest a suitable solution to legal problems;
• A comparative study tends to aid in assembling which principles, applicable in the field concerned, are fundamental and which are secondary.

The historical approach looks at the evolution and development of a particular system of rules to provide useful contextual background and a fuller understanding of a certain legal discipline both for the researcher and the ultimate reader.

A historical approach examines the relations between law and events, showing how the law has been used at different times for different purposes and how it connects with interests and classes, political ends, and social movements.

The historical approach helps us understand how a particular institution or law evolved and why they need a change in the present context.

It takes the view that history has a significant role in explaining the current state of law, its past development, and likely future direction.

For example, to understand the institutional and jurisdictional aspects of the United Nations , a brief look at the whole concept and history of collective security and that of the League of Nations could be of some help.

The historical approach takes us from the past to the future. The historical approach serves to understand the present situation and shows the general trend of changes in laws.

As the present can not be properly understood without some knowledge about the past, the foremost purpose of the historical approach is to gain a clear perspective of the present.

But historical research can aim at the simply scholarly desire of the researcher to arrive at an accurate account of the past.

The sources of the historical approach include parliamentary debates on any legislative scheme, official reports of inquiry, case reports, newspaper reports, and journals.

The researcher should be careful about the authenticity and integrity of the documents.

In evaluating documents, the researcher should try to determine their completeness by verifying whether there have been additions or deletions to the original text.

The researcher should also maintain objectivity in interpreting historical events and show an adequate historical perspective of the issue under research.

For this purpose, primary sources or historical documents should be used as extensively as possible .

There is “no set legal methodology” that is applicable in all cases. It is not always possible to make clear-cut distinctions among the above ways of approaching the methodology.

A research paper that is concerned essentially with examining a subject may also involve comparison.

The researcher can choose a method best suited to questions and available sources. It depends upon the nature of the research question.

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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 Dissertation: Research and Writing Guide

About this guide, video on choosing a topic, tools on westlaw, lexis and bloomberg, circuit splits, research methodologies, additional methodology resources, conducting a literature review, beginning research, writing style guides, citation guides, ask a librarian.

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About This Page

Choosing a topic can be one of the most challenging aspects of writing an extensive paper. This page has resources to help you find topics and inspiration, before you get started on the in-depth research process.

Related Guides

Citation and Writing Resources

Legal Research Tutorials

Secondary Sources for Legal Research

Methods of Finding Cases

Methods of Finding Statutes

Current Awareness and Alerting Resources

Compiling State Legislative Histories

Locating International and Foreign Law Journals

This guide contains resources to help students researching and writing a legal dissertation or other upper-level writing project. Some of the resources in this guide are directed at researching and writing in general, not specifically on legal topics, but the strategies and tips can still be applied.

The Law Library maintains a number of other guides on related skills and topics that may be of interest:

The Wells Library also maintains guides. A few that may be helpful for managing research can be found here:

Choosing a Topic

This video discusses tips and strategies for choosing a dissertation topic.

Note: this video is not specific to legal dissertation topics, but it may still be of interest as an overview generally.

The Bloomberg/BNA publication United States Law Week can be a helpful resource for tracking down the major legal stories of the day.  Log into Bloomberg Law, in the big search box, start typing United States Law Week and the title will appear in the drop down menu beneath the box. This publication provides coverage of top legal news stories, and in-depth "insight" features.

If you have a general idea of the area of law you wish to write about, check out the Practice Centers on Bloomberg. From the homepage, click the Browse link in the top left-hand corner. Then select Practice Centers and look for your area of law. Practice Centers are helpful because they gather cases, statutes, administrative proceedings, news, and more on the selected legal area.

Bloomberg has other news sources available as well. From the homepage, click the Browse link in the top left-hand corner. Then select News and Analysis, then select News or Analysis, and browse the available topics.

If you know what area of law you'd like to write about, you may find the Browse Topics feature in Lexis Advance helpful for narrowing down your topic. 

Log into Lexis Advance, click the Browse Topics tab, and select a topic.  If you don't see your topic listed, try using the provided search bar to see whether your topic is categorized as a sub-topic within this list. 

Once you click on a topic, a box pops up with several options.  If you click on Get Topic Document, you'll see results listed in a number of categories, including Cases, Legislation, and more.  The News and Legal News categories at the right end of the list may help you identify current developments of interest for your note.  Don't forget about the filtering options on the left that will allow you to search within your results, narrow your jurisdiction, and more.

Similar to Lexis Advance, Westlaw Edge has a Topics tab that may be helpful if you know what area of law you'd like to write about.

Log onto Westlaw Edge, and click on the Topics tab.  This time, you won't be able to search within this list, so if you're area is not listed, you should either run a regular search from the main search bar at the top or try out some of the topics listed under this tab - once you click on a topic, you can search within its contents.

What is great about the Topics in Westlaw Edge is the Practitioner Insights page you access by clicking on a topic.  This is an information portal that allows you quick access to cases, legislation, top news, and more on your selected topic.

In United States federal courts, a circuit split occurs whenever two or more circuit courts of appeals issue conflicting rulings on the same legal question. Circuit splits are ripe for legal analysis and commentary because they present a situation in which federal law is being applied in different ways in different parts of the country, even if the underlying litigants themselves are otherwise similarly situated. The Supreme Court also frequently accepts cases on appeal that involve these types of conflicted rulings from various sister circuits.

To find a circuit split on a topic of interest to you, try searching on Lexis and Westlaw using this method:

in the search box, enter the following: (circuit or court w/s split) AND [insert terms or phrases to narrow the search]

You can also browse for circuit splits on Bloomberg. On the Bloomberg homepage, in the "Law School Success" box, Circuit Splits Charts appear listed under Secondary Sources.

Other sources for circuit splits are American Law Reports (ALR) and American Jurisprudence (AmJur). These publications provide summaries of the law, point out circuit splits, and provide references for further research.

"Blawgs" or law-related blogs are often written by scholars or practitioners in the legal field.  Ordinarily covering current events and developments in law, these posts can provide inspiration for note topics.  To help you find blawgs on a specific topic, consider perusing the ABA's Blawg Directory or Justia's Blawg Search .

Research Methodology

Types of research methodologies.

There are different types of research methodologies. Methodology refers to the strategy employed in conducting research. The following methodologies are some of the most commonly used in legal and social science research.

Doctrinal legal research methodology, also called "black letter" methodology, focuses on the letter of the law rather than the law in action. Using this method, a researcher composes a descriptive and detailed analysis of legal rules found in primary sources (cases, statutes, or regulations). The purpose of this method is to gather, organize, and describe the law; provide commentary on the sources used; then, identify and describe the underlying theme or system and how each source of law is connected.

Doctrinal methodology is good for areas of law that are largely black letter law, such as contract or property law. Under this approach, the researcher conducts a critical, qualitative analysis of legal materials to support a hypothesis. The researcher must identify specific legal rules, then discuss the legal meaning of the rule, its underlying principles, and decision-making under the rule (whether cases interpreting the rule fit together in a coherent system or not). The researcher must also identify ambiguities and criticisms of the law, and offer solutions. Sources of data in doctrinal research include the rule itself, cases generated under the rule, legislative history where applicable, and commentaries and literature on the rule.

This approach is beneficial by providing a solid structure for crafting a thesis, organizing the paper, and enabling a thorough definition and explanation of the rule. The drawbacks of this approach are that it may be too formalistic, and may lead to oversimplifying the legal doctrine.

Comparative

Comparative legal research methodology involves critical analysis of different bodies of law to examine how the outcome of a legal issue could be different under each set of laws. Comparisons could be made between different jurisdictions, such as comparing analysis of a legal issue under American law and the laws of another country, or researchers may conduct historical comparisons.

When using a comparative approach be sure to define the reasons for choosing this approach, and identify the benefits of comparing laws from different jurisdictions or time periods, such as finding common ground or determining best practices and solutions. The comparative method can be used by a researcher to better understand their home jurisdiction by analyzing how other jurisdictions handle the same issue. This method can also be used as a critical analytical tool to distinguish particular features of a law. The drawback of this method is that it can be difficult to find material from other jurisdictions. Also, researchers should be sure that the comparisons are relevant to the thesis and not just used for description.

This type of research uses data analysis to study legal systems. A detailed guide on empirical methods can be found here . The process of empirical research involves four steps: design the project, collect and code the data, analyze the data, determine best method of presenting the results. The first step, designing the project, is when researchers define their hypothesis and concepts in concrete terms that can be observed. Next, researchers must collect and code the data by determining the possible sources of information and available collection methods, and then putting the data into a format that can be analyzed. When researchers analyze the data, they are comparing the data to their hypothesis. If the overlap between the two is significant, then their hypothesis is confirmed, but if there is little to no overlap, then their hypothesis is incorrect. Analysis involves summarizing the data and drawing inferences. There are two types of statistical inference in empirical research, descriptive and causal. Descriptive inference is close to summary, but the researcher uses the known data from the sample to draw conclusions about the whole population. Causal inference is the difference between two descriptive inferences.

Two main types of empirical legal research are qualitative and quantitative.

Quantitative, or numerical, empirical legal research involves taking information about cases and courts, translating that information into numbers, and then analyzing those numbers with statistical tools.

Qualitative, or non-numerical, empirical legal research involves extracting  information from the text of court documents, then interpreting and organizing the text into categories, and using that information to identify patterns.

Drafting The Methodology Section

This is the part of your paper that describes the research methodology, or methodologies if you used more than one. This section will contain a detailed description of how the research was conducted and why it was conducted in that way. First, draft an outline of what you must include in this section and gather the information needed.

Generally, a methodology section will contain the following:

• Statement of research objectives
• Reasons for the research methodology used
• Description and rationale of the data collection tools, sampling techniques, and data sources used, including a description of how the data collection tools were administered
• Discussion of the limitations
• Discussion of the data analysis tools used

Be sure that you have clearly defined the reasoning behind the chosen methodology and sources.

• Legal Reasoning, Research, and Writing for International Graduate Students Nadia E. Nedzel Aspen (2004) A guide to American legal research and the federal system, written for international students. Includes information on the research process, and tips for writing. Located in the Law Library, 3rd Floor: KF 240 .N43 2004.
• Methodologies of Legal Research: Which Kind of Method for What Kind of Discipline? Mark van Hoecke Oxford (2013) This book examines different methods of legal research including doctrinal, comparative, and interdisciplinary. Located at Lilly Law Library, Indianapolis, 2nd Floor: K 235 .M476 2013. IU students may request item via IUCAT.
• An Introduction to Empirical Legal Research Lee Epstein and Andrew D. Martin Oxford University Press (2014) This book includes information on designing research, collecting and coding data, analyzing data, and drafting the final paper. Located at Lilly Law Library, Indianapolis, 2nd Floor: K 85 .E678 2014. IU students may request item via IUCAT.
• Emplirical Legal Studies Blog The ELS blog was created by several law professors, and focuses on using empirical methods in legal research, theory, and scholarship. Search or browse the blog to find entries on methodology, data sources, software, and other tips and techniques.

Literature Review

The literature review provides an examination of existing pieces of research, and serves as a foundation for further research. It allows the researcher to critically evaluate existing scholarship and research practices, and puts the new thesis in context. When conducting a literature review, one should consider the following: who are the leading scholars in the subject area; what has been published on the subject; what factors or subtopics have these scholars identified as important for further examination; what research methods have others used; what were the pros and cons of using those methods; what other theories have been explored.

The literature review should include a description of coverage. The researcher should describe what material was selected and why, and how those selections are relevant to the thesis. Discuss what has been written on the topic and where the thesis fits in the context of existing scholarship. The researcher should evaluate the sources and methodologies used by other researchers, and describe how the thesis different.

The following video gives an overview of conducting a literature review.

Note: this video is not specific to legal literature, however it may be helpful as a general overview.

Not sure where to start? Here are a few suggestions for digging into sources once you have selected a topic.

Research Guides

Research guides are discovery tools, or gateways of information. They pull together lists of sources on a topic. Some guides even offer brief overviews and additional research steps specifically for that topic. Many law libraries offer guides on a variety of subjects. You can locate guides by visiting library websites, such as this Library's site , the Law Library of Congress , or other schools like Georgetown . Some organizations also compile research guides, such as the American Society of International Law . Utilizing a research guide on your topic to generate an introductory source list can save you valuable time.

Secondary Sources

It is often a good idea to begin research with secondary sources. These resources summarize, explain, and analyze the law. They also provide references to primary sources and other secondary sources. This saves you time and effort, and can help you quickly identify major themes under your topic and help you place your thesis in context.

Encyclopedias provide broad coverage of all areas of the law, but do not go in-depth on narrow topics, or discuss differences by jurisdiction, or  include all of the pertinent cases. American Jurisprudence ( AmJur ) and Corpus Juris Secundum ( CJS ) have nationwide coverage, while the Indiana Law Encyclopedia focuses on Indiana state law. A number of other states also have their own state-specific encyclopedias.

American Law Reports ( ALR ) are annotations that synopsize various cases on narrow legal topics. Each annotation covers a different topic, and provides a leading or typical case on the topic, plus cases from different jurisdictions that follow different rules, or cases where different facts applying the same rule led to different outcomes. The annotations also refer to other secondary sources.  

Legal periodicals include several different types of publications such as law reviews from academic institutions or organizations, bar journals, and commercial journals/newspapers/newsletters. Legal periodicals feature articles that describe the current state of the law and often explore underlying policies. They also critique laws, court decisions, and policies, and often advocate for changes. Articles also discuss emerging issues and notify the profession of new developments. Law reviews can be useful for in-depth coverage on narrow topics, and references to primary and other secondary sources. However, content can become outdated and researchers must be mindful of biases in articles. 

Treatises/Hornbooks/Practice Guides are a type of secondary source that provides comprehensive coverage of a legal subject. It could be broad, such as a treatise covering all of contract law, or very narrow such as a treatise focused only on search and seizure cases. These sources are good when you have some general background on the topic, but you need more in-depth coverage of the legal rules and policies. Treatises are generally well organized, and provide you with finding aids (index, table of contents, etc.) and extensive footnotes or endnotes that will lead you to primary sources like cases, statutes, and regulations. They may also include appendices with supporting material like forms. However, treatises may not be updated as frequently as other sources and may not cover your specific issue or jurisdiction.

Citation and Writing Style

• Legal Writing in Plain English Bryan A. Garner University of Chicago Press, 2001. Call # KF 250 .G373 2001 Location: Law Library, 3rd Floor Provides lawyers, judges, paralegals, law students, and legal scholars with sound advice and practical tools for improving their written work. The leading guide to clear writing in the field, this book offers valuable insights into the writing process: how to organize ideas, create and refine prose, and improve editing skills. This guide uses real-life writing samples that Garner has gathered through decades of teaching experience. Includes sets of basic, intermediate, and advanced exercises in each section.
• The Elements of Legal Style Bryan A. Garner Oxford University Press, 2002. Call # KF 250 .G37 2002 Location: Law Library, 1st Floor, Reference This book explains the full range of what legal writers need to know: mechanics, word choice, structure, and rhetoric, as well as all the special conventions that legal writers should follow in using headings, defined terms, quotations, and many other devices. Garner also provides examples from highly regarded legal writers, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Clarence Darrow, Frank Easterbrook, and Antonin Scalia.
• Grammarly Blog Blog featuring helpful information about quirks of the English language, for example when to use "affect" or "effect" and other tips. Use the search feature to locate an article relevant to your grammar query.
• Plain English for Lawyers Richard C. Wydick Carolina Academic Press, 2005. Call # KF 250 .W9 2005 Location: Law Library, 3rd Floor Award-winning book that contains guidance to improve the writing of lawyers and law students and to promote the modern trend toward a clear, plain style of legal writing. Includes exercises at the end of each chapter.
• The Chicago Manual of Style University of Chicago Press, 2010. Call # Z 253 .U69 2010 Location: Law Library, 2nd Floor While not addressing legal writing specifically, The Chicago Manual of Style is one of the most widely used and respected style guides in the United States. It focuses on American English and deals with aspects of editorial practice, including grammar and usage, as well as document preparation and formatting.
• The Chicago Manual of Style (Online) Bryan A. Garner and William S. Strong The University of Chicago Press, 2017. Online edition: use the link above to view record in IUCAT, then click the Access link (for IU students only).
• The Bluebook Compiled by the editors of the Columbia Law Review, the Harvard Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal. Harvard Law Review Association, 2015. Call # KF245 .B58 2015 Location: Law Library, 1st Floor, Circulation Desk The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation is a style guide that prescribes the most widely used legal citation system in the United States. The Bluebook is taught and used at a majority of U.S. law schools, law reviews and journals, and used in a majority of U.S. federal courts.
• User's Guide to the Bluebook Alan L. Dworsky William S. Hein & Co., Inc., 2015. Call # KF 245 .D853 2015 Location: Law Library, Circulation Desk "This User's Guide is written for practitioners (law students, law clerks, lawyers, legal secretaries and paralegals), and is designed to make the task of mastering citation form as easy and painless as possible. To help alleviate the obstacles faced when using proper citation form, this text is set up as a how-to manual with a step-by-step approach to learning the basic skills of citation and includes the numbers of the relevant Bluebook rules under most chapter subheadings for easy reference when more information is needed"--Provided by the publisher.
• Legal Citation in a Nutshell Larry L. Teply West Academic Publishing, 2016. Call # KF 245 .T47 2016 Location: Law Library, 1st Floor, Circulation Desk This book is designed to ease the task of learning legal citation. It initially focuses on conventions that underlie all accepted forms and systems of legal citation. Building on that understanding and an explanation of the “process” of using citations in legal writing, the book then discusses and illustrates the basic rules.
• Introduction to Basic Legal Citation (Online) Peter W. Martin Cornell Legal Information Institute, 2017. Free online resource. Includes a thorough review of the relevant rules of appellate practice of federal and state courts. It takes account of the latest edition of The Bluebook, published in 2015, and provides a correlation table between this free online citation guide and the Bluebook.
• Last Updated: Oct 24, 2019 11:00 AM
• URL: https://law.indiana.libguides.com/dissertationguide

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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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1 Introduction: Legal Research Methodology, Purposes, and Footsteps

• Published: January 2020
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The first chapter introduces the subject by explaining key words like research, legal research, method, and methodology. By linking knowledge with research, it brings out the purposive character of knowledge influencing research. It lists various objectives of legal research such as exploration, description, historical explanation, law reform, prediction, and publication, briefly explaining each. It traces the historical development of legal research in India thorugh ancient, medieval, colonial, and modern times. It finds that legal research became systematic and wide spread only along with orderly growth of legal education. Finally, it catalogues diverse methods of legal research under the categories of doctrinal, non-doctrinal, and integrated methods of legal research. Reader gets a basic idea about legal research, its past, present, and future potentiality and a glimpse of its wider canvas.

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Research Guide for Law Graduate Students

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Research Methodology

This page provides a list of books and e-books about research methodologies that are employed by graduate students in law.

The phrase "research methodology" in this context refers to the "methods and rules that are used to analyze a particular field, or a particular procedure or set of procedures" (Lammasniemi, 2022). Research methodologies used by graduate students in law include (but are not limited to) doctrinal research, comparative law, socio-legal research, and theoretical research.

Note: "research methodology" is NOT the same as "how to do legal research." If you are looking for guidance on how to conduct legal research in a particular jurisdiction, please refer to this guide's chapters on Canadian Law and Foreign Law.

Guides on Research Methodology

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Legal Practice

Types of Legal Research

What do you mean by Legal Research?

Legal Research is the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. It begins with an analysis of the facts of a problem and it concludes with the results of the investigation. Legal research skills are of great importance for lawyers to solve any legal case, regardless of area or type of practice. The most basic step in legal research is to find a noteworthy case governing the issues in question. As most legal researchers know, this is far more difficult than it sounds.

Whether you are a Lawyer, a paralegal, or a law student, it is essential that Legal research is done in an effective manner. This is where the methodology comes into play. Different cases must be approached in different ways and this is why it is important to know which type of legal research methodology is suitable for your case and helpful for your client.

Read Also: Here is the Importance of Legal Research in Legal Practice

Different Types of Legal Research

1) descriptive legal research.

Descriptive Legal research is defined as a research method that describes the characteristics of the population or phenomenon that is being studied. This methodology focuses more on the “what” of the research subject rather than the “why” of the research subject. In other words, descriptive legal research primarily focuses on the nature of a demographic segment, without focusing on “why” something happens. In other words, it is a description based which does not cover the “why” aspect of the research subject.

For example, a lawyer that wants to understand the crime trends among Mumbai will conduct a demographic survey of this region, gather population data and then conduct descriptive research on this demographic segment. The research will then give us the details on “what is the crime pattern of Mumbai?”, but not cover any investigative details on “why” the patterns exits. Because for the lawyer trying to understand these crimes patterns, for them, understanding the nature of their crimes is the objective of the study.

2) Quantitative research

Quantitative Legal Research is a characteristic of Descriptive Legal Research Methodology that attempts to collect quantifiable information to be used for statistical analysis of the population sample. It is a popular research tool that allows us to collect and describe the nature of the demographic segment. Quantitative Legal Research collects information from existing and potential data using sampling methods like online surveys, online polls, questionnaires, etc., the results of which can be depicted in numerical form. After careful understanding of these numbers, it is possible to predict the future and make changes to manage the situation.

An example of quantitative research is the survey conducted to understand the turnaround time of cases in the high court and how much time it takes from the time the case is filed until the judgment is passed. A complainant’s satisfaction survey template can be administered to ask questions like how much time did the process take, how often were they called to court, and other such questions.

3) Qualitative Legal Research

Qualitative Legal Research is a subjective form of research that relies on the analysis of controlled observations of the legal researcher. In qualitative research, data is obtained from a relatively small group of subjects. Data is not analyzed with statistical techniques. Usually, narrative data is collected in qualitative research.

Qualitative research can be adopted as a method to study people or systems by interacting with and observing the subjects regularly. The various methods used for collecting data in qualitative research are grounded theory practice, narratology, storytelling, and ethnography.

Grounded theory practice: It is research grounded in the observations or data from which it was developed. Various data sources used in grounded theory are quantitative data, review of records, interviews, observation, and surveys.

Narratology: It refers to the theory and study of narrative and narrative structure. It also shows the way in which the result affects the researcher’s perception.

Storytelling: This is a method by which events are recounted in the form of a story. The method is generally used in the field of organization and management studies.

Ethnography- Ethnography is used for investigating cultures by collecting and describing data intend to help the development of a theory.

4) Analytical Legal Research

Analytical Legal Research is a style of qualitative inquiry. It is a specific type of research that involves critical thinking skills and the evaluation of facts and information relative to the research being conducted. Lawyers often use an analytical approach to their legal research to find the most relevant information. From analytical research, a person finds out critical details to add new ideas to the material being produced.

For example, examining the fluctuations of Crime Rates of India between 2010-2020 is an example of descriptive research; while explaining why and how the Crime rates spiked over time is an example of analytical research.

5) Applied Legal Research

Applied Legal Research is a methodology used to find a solution to a pressing practical problem at hand. It is a straightforward practical approach to the case you are handling. It involves doing full-fledged research on a specific area of law followed by gathering information on all technical legal rules and principles applied and forming an opinion on the prospects for the client in the scenario.

For Example, if your client is an employee of an organization and is fighting against wrongful termination of contract then the practical approach to this would be by carefully evaluating the company policies and finding company policies that were violated and to suing the organization based on those arguments.

6) Pure Legal Research

Pure legal research is also known as basic Legal Research usually focuses on generalization and formulation of a theory. The aim of this type of research methodology is to broaden the understanding of a particular field of investigation.  It is a more general form of approach to the case you are handling. The researcher does not focus on the practical utility

For Example, researchers might conduct basic research on illiteracy leads to unemployment. The results of these theoretical explorations might lead to further studies designed to solve specific problems of unemployment.

7) Conceptual Legal Research

Conceptual Legal Research is defined as a methodology wherein research is conducted by observing and analyzing already present information on a given topic. Conceptual research doesn’t involve conducting any practical experiments. It is related to abstract concepts or ideas.

They are generally resorted to by the philosophers and thinkers to develop new concepts or reinterpret the existing concepts but has also proven to be a useful methodology for legal purposes.

For example, many of our ancient laws were influenced by the British Rule. Only later did we improve upon many laws and created new and simplified laws after our Independence. So another way to think of this type of research would be to observe, come up with a concept or theories aligned with previous theories to hopefully derive new theories.

8) Empirical Legal Research

Empirical Legal Research describes how to investigate the roles of legislation, regulation, legal policies, and other legal arrangements at play in society. It acts as a guide to paralegals, lawyers, and law 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.

For example, Pharmaceutical companies use empirical research to try out a specific drug on controlled groups or random groups to study the effect and cause.

Read Also – How to Do Legal Research?

Other Major Methods of Legal Research.

1) doctrinal legal research.

The central question of inquiry here is ‘what is the law?’ on a particular issue. It is concerned with finding the law, rigorously analyzing it and coming up with logical reasoning behind it. Therefore, it immensely contributes to the continuity, consistency, and certainty of law. The basic information can be found in the statutory material i.e.

primary sources as well in the secondary sources. However, the research has its own limitations, it is subjective, that is limited to the perception of the researcher, away from the actual working of the law, devoid of factors that lie outside the boundaries of the law, and fails to focus on the actual practice of the courts.

2) Non-doctrinal Legal Research

It is also known as socio-legal research and it looks into how the law and legal institutions mold and affects society. It employs methods taken from other disciplines in order to generate empirical data to answer the questions.

3)  Comparative Legal Research

This involves a comparison of legal doctrines, legislations, and foreign laws. It highlights the cultural and social character of law and how does it act in different settings. So it is useful in developing and amending, and modifying the law. But a

the cautious approach has to be taken in blindly accepting the law of another social setting as a base because it might not act in the same manner in a different setting.

Read Also – What is Doctrinal and Non-Doctrinal Legal Research?

Legal research is a systematic understanding of the law while keeping in mind it’s advancements. Law usually acts within the society and they both have an impact on each other. Each kind of research methodology has its own value. However, while undertaking research a researcher might face some hurdles but they can be avoided if he/she properly plans the research process.

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This article provides a comprehensive overview of the different types of legal research. It’s a great resource for law students and professionals alike!

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Unit snapshot.

UG Coursework Unit

Credit points

Faculty & college.

Faculty of Business, Law and Arts

Unit description

Introduces students to a law library and develops the skills necessary to locate use and apply law reports, statutes, and secondary legal sources, using both computer assisted legal research and hard copy methods. Students also examine the principles of good legal writing, including an understanding of the use and preparation of legal research material, and an introduction to drafting using 'plain' legal language to prepare legal documents.

Unit content

Module 1: Researching and Understanding the Australian Legal System

Module 2: Legal Skills and Reasoning

Module 3: Writing in Law

Module 4: Legal Research Methods

Module 5: Researching and Using Secondary Sources

Module 6: Researching and Using Primary Sources

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2025 unit offering information will be available in November 2024

Learning outcomes

Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes . The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

employ techniques of effective written communication and use plain legal language to draft legal documents clearly, concisely and accurately

demonstrate knowledge and application of academic integrity

efficiently and accurately research, apply appropriate legal research methods to identify and retrieve legal and non-legal resources relevant to the resolution of legal issues

apply, evaluate and clearly articulate in writing the results of the student’s legal research to solve problems

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Commonwealth Supported courses For information regarding Student Contribution Amounts please visit the Student Contribution Amounts .

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Diploma of legal studies (2025), diploma of conveyancing (law and practice) (2024), diploma of conveyancing (law and practice) (2025), associate degree of law (paralegal studies) (2025), associate degree of law (paralegal studies) (2024), bachelor of legal and justice studies (2024), bachelor of legal and justice studies (2025), bachelor of laws (2025), bachelor of laws (2024), bachelor of education (2024), bachelor of education (2025), bachelor of arts (2024), bachelor of arts (2025), bachelor of business and enterprise (2024), bachelor of business (2025), bachelor of psychological science, bachelor of laws (2025), bachelor of psychological science, bachelor of laws (2024), bachelor of arts, bachelor of laws (2025), bachelor of arts, bachelor of laws (2024), bachelor of laws, bachelor of business and enterprise (2024), bachelor of laws, bachelor of business (2025), any questions we'd love to help.

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Law Enforcement and Mental Health Encounters in One Vermont Jurisdiction

Introduction.

Criminal justice stakeholders and policymakers are interested in the way people with mental health concerns and/or substance use disorders engage with law enforcement agencies. This examination explores a sample of these interactions to describe individuals’ contact with the criminal justice system. A better understanding of these interactions can evaluate the utility of administrative data to inform policies regarding police responses in crisis incidents.

With data provided by a municipal police department, researchers identified 18 people who had the most arrests from 2018-2022 and at least one incident with a mental health flag in the Valcour system. Criminal histories were obtained and used in conjunction with data from the Vermont judiciary and Department of Corrections to construct a robust description of how these individuals interact with the criminal justice system.

This study is a preliminary exploration of the utility of administrative data in describing how and why people with behavioral health concerns utilize police services in one municipal police department. As such, the results may not be applicable to other agencies and populations in Vermont. The cohort was too small to find patterns in the criminal histories that suggest how a person goes from limited contact in the first two years to a high utilization of services. Missing also is how much contact the cohort had with law enforcement during their lifetime. Additionally, the interaction that individuals with behavioral health concerns have with other law enforcement agencies, social service providers, and hospitals was outside the scope of study.

On average, individuals in the cohort had 1.39 contacts per day with law enforcement. Most of the calls were related to non-violent matters. The most common type of call involved intoxication followed by trespass.

Daily Incidents

The cohort's interaction with the police during the study period overwhelmingly did not lead to arrest or further criminal justice contact. Only 177 (7%) incidents recorded an arrest during the study period. 

Arrest Type

Trespass was the most common charge for arrested individuals. Arrests for violent crimes were uncommon. Officers used force in just 6% (18) of the incidents.

Charge Type

CRG used the first 2 years of an individual's Vermont criminal history to illustrate how much criminal justice involvement a person had each month. CRG calculated whether the person had an open criminal case, was incarcerated, was on probation, or any combination of those statuses. A person was free (green) if during that month they had no formal contact with the system. By the end of the second year, all but two cohort members were free of criminal justice oversight.

Cohort Members' First 24 Months

Recommendations

The study found that the cohort has high contact with and use of police services. Enhancing coordination with social support organizations could alleviate the strain on police resources. Initiatives that embed social workers or coordinate community responses with law enforcement agencies, such as Project Vision in Rutland, Project Alliance in Bennington, and others around the state are an appropriate response to the patterns found in this study.