Legal research process and methodology

Legal research as Putman and Albright (2014, p. 335) point out "is the part of legal analysis that involves finding the law that applies to the legal question raised by the facts of a client's case." As the authors further point out, there is no magic formula when it comes to the conduction of legal research. There is no 'one best way' of conducting legal research. It is with this in mind that I develop my own three step legal research strategy.

My Three (3) Step Legal Research Process

Analysis and Planning

As far as legal research is concerned, Elias (2012, p. 69) is of the opinion that one ought to have a clear idea of that which he or she would want to accomplish. In this particular stage, I would concern myself with not only the identification of the case's key facts, but also the establishment of the various legal issues represented therein. This I would do knowing only too well that it is only rarely that legal problems fall into a single category of law, i.e. criminal or contract law. As a matter of fact, legal problems often involve multiple areas of law. Conducting an analysis of the facts of the case and identifying the legal principles represented would, therefore, be of great relevance in helping me to focus on key issues of law. I would also come up with a search strategy plan that keeps my legal research undertaking focused on only the legally relevant material.

Step 2: Researching the Law

At this point, both primary and secondary resources would come in handy. My key focus would be reading and evaluating the law. While a secondary authority, as Yelin and Samborn (2008, p. 25) point out, makes available a commentary on the law, a primary authority is, essentially, "law generated by a government body." The latter, therefore, includes "legislative enactments such as constitutions, statutes, ordinances, or charters…" (Yelin and Samborn, 2008, p. 25). On this front, I would largely proceed from finding the general information -- as captured in the relevant secondary resources, to relying on information that could be regarded more authoritative -- mainly sourced from secondary resources.

When it comes to reading and evaluating the law, I believe that at this point in time, I do possess the ability to engage in critical evaluation of legal information. After 'finding the law', as I have already pointed out, I would then seek to understand the legal issues involved -- so as to properly and professionally synthesize evidence, facts and opinions. The relevance of this particular step cannot be overstated when it comes to the development of a well-formulated analysis that links back to the scenario or problem under consideration.