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.
Legal Research Basics: A Step-By-Step Guide to Brushing Up ...
Step 1: Record the Facts of Your Case and Create a Research Plan. Handling a legal task with authority requires confidence in the process. This is true in any practice, jurisdictional setting, or level of legal expertise. A good process should start by taking time to identify and understand the facts of your case.
Legal Research Strategy
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 Do Legal Research: A Complete Guide
First, ensure you understand what you're researching. Then, start with secondary sources (law reviews, practice guides, and treatises), consulting a citator to ensure it's "good" law. Lastly, fill in any gaps with primary sources, including constitutions, treaties, regulations, and case law.
How to Conduct Legal Research and Analysis
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.".
How to Conduct Legal Research
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.".
How to Do Legal Research: The Ultimate Overview
3. Gather Sources. Armed with a list of relevant terms and facts about your case, it's time to get into law research. You'll generally find two types of sources valuable. Primary Sources: Primary legal sources are formal documents issued by a state or federal government that establish law such as: Court decisions.
The ultimate guide to conducting legal research
First, identify where you're planning to search. Lawyers and legal counsel too often rely on free services like Google to find information. Indeed, the LexisNexis 2022 Bellwether report found that a concerning 74% of lawyers use Google for research. The problem is that Google often provides information that is unreliable and outdated.
Conducting Legal Research
Other times you might have some preliminary knowledge, so you can start with step two or three. Sometimes, it's easier to do Steps 3 and 4(a) together. Ultimately, the five steps provide structure for your research and can help you when you don't know where to go next. Here are the five steps: 1. Formulate a Research Plan 2. Consult Secondary ...
Strategy and Considerations
Research guides will often list useful print and Internet resources for legal research on a given subject. They can been a good starting point for legal research on an unfamiliar subject. Online research guides are generally free and most major law school libraries have collections of research guides on their websites. Remember that local and ...
LibGuides: Legal Research Basics: The Research Process
Step 2: Create a Research Plan. Decide where to begin (usually secondary sources). Identify primary authority sources to search (federal, state, or both; statutes, regulations, and cases). Locate the sources you wish to search, choose the format, understand the scope and coverage of the resource and how to navigate / search (table of contents ...
LibGuides: Introduction to Legal Research: How to Start
Ask relevant questions. Any research into legal matters should begin with a review of the facts of the case. To make certain you have a thorough understanding of the details at hand, ask yourself the 5Ws: who, what, where, when, why. Determine the jurisdiction. After you have established the necessary details of the legal issue, you will need ...
Introduction to Legal Research: How to Start
To begin to research, you need a list of search terms. Here are three ways to come up with search terms: Brainstorm by jotting down as many synonyms and related words as you can because different resources use different terminology to refer to the same topic. For example, "children" could be listed under "infants," "minors," or "parent and child."
How to Effectively Do Legal Research
Draw from diverse sources. When you're conducting legal research, it's a good rule of thumb to try and draw from many different kinds of sources. Consider referencing a blend of primary ...
A paralegal's guide on how to do legal research
Step 1: Identify the facts, issues, and jurisdiction. Before you can begin your research, you must first determine the facts, the issues, and the jurisdiction of the legal research project. Eliminate the unimportant facts and focus on the essential facts such as who, what, where, and how.
How to do Legal Research in Law School
Step #1:Legal Research Process. Secondary Sources: Sources of information that describe or interpret the law, such as legal treatises, law review articles, and other scholarly legal writings, cited by lawyers to persuade a court to reach a particular decision in a case, but which the court is not obligated to follow.
LibGuides: Legal Research: An Overview: Introduction
Good research begins with knowing what it is you are researching. New attorneys often overlook the importance of their initial communications with those assigning them projects. In their zeal to impress their employers and to appear informed, new attorneys may draw their own assumptions about the objectives for the research, neglect to ask ...
How to do Legal Research: Legal Research Overview
We have the big name online databases (Westlaw and Lexis); we have smaller online databases (HeinOnline, for instance), and we have many print resources. Our advice is to take some time to use many different resources. It will strengthen your research, and it will increase your ability to effectively work in any environment that you may end up in.
Legal Research 101: 7 Tips Every Law Student Needs to Know
6. Consider the date, but don't obsess over it. As a rule of thumb, a more recent case is generally preferred. Newer cases often reflect the legal and societal changes that could affect the case law. Nevertheless, if you find a case that matches your fact pattern and applicable law but it's 30 years old, don't panic.
PDF An Introduction to Legal Research
Step #1: Legal Research Process 7 Secondary Sources: Sources of information that describe or interpret the law, such as legal treatises, law review articles, and other scholarly legal writings, cited by lawyers to persuade a court to reach a particular decision in a case, but which the court is not obligated to follow.
Home
This guide contains selected, free, online United States federal and state legal research materials. Many lawyers have access to paid databases. Yet, combining paid and free resources, can help them to avoid potentially expensive searches. According to a 2020 Legal Technology Survey Report, nearly 60% of lawyers "say they regularly use free ...
Home: Introduction to Legal Research
This catch-all category of legal materials is essentially everything that is not primary law. Secondary sources are materials that explain, analyze, critique or help you find the law. Examples are. Legal encyclopedias (comprehensive sets of brief articles on legal topics) Treatises (scholarly legal publications that cover a large area of law in ...
Prepare to Practice: Advancing Your Legal Research
Practicing lawyers often rely on model forms and common language, proven to withstand legal scrutiny. When creating instruments such as contracts, wills, and agreements try starting with a model document. Tailoring pre-existing language to your needs, may be better than unique expression in these circumstances.
CBD: Does it work? Is it safe? Is it legal?
Existing research comes from trials conducted using high-quality CBD — but the commercial CBD market "is an entirely different beast," says Babalonis. "The CBD administered in research trials is not comparable to what you get at the gas station or online. You can't necessarily even call some of the unregulated products CBD."
COMMENTS
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.
Step 1: Record the Facts of Your Case and Create a Research Plan. Handling a legal task with authority requires confidence in the process. This is true in any practice, jurisdictional setting, or level of legal expertise. A good process should start by taking time to identify and understand the facts of your case.
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.
First, ensure you understand what you're researching. Then, start with secondary sources (law reviews, practice guides, and treatises), consulting a citator to ensure it's "good" law. Lastly, fill in any gaps with primary sources, including constitutions, treaties, regulations, and case law.
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.".
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.".
3. Gather Sources. Armed with a list of relevant terms and facts about your case, it's time to get into law research. You'll generally find two types of sources valuable. Primary Sources: Primary legal sources are formal documents issued by a state or federal government that establish law such as: Court decisions.
First, identify where you're planning to search. Lawyers and legal counsel too often rely on free services like Google to find information. Indeed, the LexisNexis 2022 Bellwether report found that a concerning 74% of lawyers use Google for research. The problem is that Google often provides information that is unreliable and outdated.
Other times you might have some preliminary knowledge, so you can start with step two or three. Sometimes, it's easier to do Steps 3 and 4(a) together. Ultimately, the five steps provide structure for your research and can help you when you don't know where to go next. Here are the five steps: 1. Formulate a Research Plan 2. Consult Secondary ...
Research guides will often list useful print and Internet resources for legal research on a given subject. They can been a good starting point for legal research on an unfamiliar subject. Online research guides are generally free and most major law school libraries have collections of research guides on their websites. Remember that local and ...
Step 2: Create a Research Plan. Decide where to begin (usually secondary sources). Identify primary authority sources to search (federal, state, or both; statutes, regulations, and cases). Locate the sources you wish to search, choose the format, understand the scope and coverage of the resource and how to navigate / search (table of contents ...
Ask relevant questions. Any research into legal matters should begin with a review of the facts of the case. To make certain you have a thorough understanding of the details at hand, ask yourself the 5Ws: who, what, where, when, why. Determine the jurisdiction. After you have established the necessary details of the legal issue, you will need ...
To begin to research, you need a list of search terms. Here are three ways to come up with search terms: Brainstorm by jotting down as many synonyms and related words as you can because different resources use different terminology to refer to the same topic. For example, "children" could be listed under "infants," "minors," or "parent and child."
Draw from diverse sources. When you're conducting legal research, it's a good rule of thumb to try and draw from many different kinds of sources. Consider referencing a blend of primary ...
Step 1: Identify the facts, issues, and jurisdiction. Before you can begin your research, you must first determine the facts, the issues, and the jurisdiction of the legal research project. Eliminate the unimportant facts and focus on the essential facts such as who, what, where, and how.
Step #1:Legal Research Process. Secondary Sources: Sources of information that describe or interpret the law, such as legal treatises, law review articles, and other scholarly legal writings, cited by lawyers to persuade a court to reach a particular decision in a case, but which the court is not obligated to follow.
Good research begins with knowing what it is you are researching. New attorneys often overlook the importance of their initial communications with those assigning them projects. In their zeal to impress their employers and to appear informed, new attorneys may draw their own assumptions about the objectives for the research, neglect to ask ...
We have the big name online databases (Westlaw and Lexis); we have smaller online databases (HeinOnline, for instance), and we have many print resources. Our advice is to take some time to use many different resources. It will strengthen your research, and it will increase your ability to effectively work in any environment that you may end up in.
6. Consider the date, but don't obsess over it. As a rule of thumb, a more recent case is generally preferred. Newer cases often reflect the legal and societal changes that could affect the case law. Nevertheless, if you find a case that matches your fact pattern and applicable law but it's 30 years old, don't panic.
Step #1: Legal Research Process 7 Secondary Sources: Sources of information that describe or interpret the law, such as legal treatises, law review articles, and other scholarly legal writings, cited by lawyers to persuade a court to reach a particular decision in a case, but which the court is not obligated to follow.
This guide contains selected, free, online United States federal and state legal research materials. Many lawyers have access to paid databases. Yet, combining paid and free resources, can help them to avoid potentially expensive searches. According to a 2020 Legal Technology Survey Report, nearly 60% of lawyers "say they regularly use free ...
This catch-all category of legal materials is essentially everything that is not primary law. Secondary sources are materials that explain, analyze, critique or help you find the law. Examples are. Legal encyclopedias (comprehensive sets of brief articles on legal topics) Treatises (scholarly legal publications that cover a large area of law in ...
Practicing lawyers often rely on model forms and common language, proven to withstand legal scrutiny. When creating instruments such as contracts, wills, and agreements try starting with a model document. Tailoring pre-existing language to your needs, may be better than unique expression in these circumstances.
Existing research comes from trials conducted using high-quality CBD — but the commercial CBD market "is an entirely different beast," says Babalonis. "The CBD administered in research trials is not comparable to what you get at the gas station or online. You can't necessarily even call some of the unregulated products CBD."