legal research methodology

1. Legal Research: The Aspect
of Originality

2. What is Research? What is Legal Research?
• Search for Knowledge
• Systematic and scientific investigation into facts or into a problem
• to acquire insights into or to find an apt solution.
• Movement from the known to the unknown (increasing the sum of
human knowledge)

3. Usefulness of Research
• To ascertain the law on a given topic/subject
• To identify gaps and ambiguities in law
• To undertake social auditing of law
• To suggest reforms/developments in law
• To undertake an evaluation of the effectiveness/impact of law
• To critically examine legal provisions, principles etc
• To find out whether law is serving the needs of the society
• To predict the future trend in law

4. Can you briefly identify the research stages through which
your project evolved?
Stages of Research

5. Stages of Research
• Identification and Formulation of a Research
Problem↓
• Review of Literature↓
• Formulation of a Hypothesis↓
• Research Design↓
• Collection of Data↓
• Analysis of Data↓
• Interpretation of Data↓
• Testing of Hypothesis ↓
• Research Report

6. Legal Originality

7. Originality
Micro
Macro
Scientific
Legal
Research
Non-
Legal
Topics

8. • Micro-legal Questions - research that analyses a specific legal problem (a specific
provision of a statute or code, or a specific case or line of cases)
1. the aim for coherence and integrity of the law
2. Legal History
3. Add ‘macro-legal topics’ to a ‘micro-legal analysis
4. Comparative
5. other academic disciplines can enrich a micro-legal analysis
6.Connecting Law to Life

9. • Macro-legal analysis is concerned with 1) general concepts, 2) problems and 3) principles of the law.
1) Macro-legal research as an extension of micro-legal research
2) Concentrate on the basic terms which categorize the legal system such as ‘law’, ‘justice’ and ‘rights
3) look at legal methods in a wide sense, which includes methods of interpretation, legal research and
education; can also be at a general level whether and how insights from other academic fields can(or
should) be considered in legal reasoning
4) Examining increasingly international features of the law.
5) Relationship b/w law and politics can stimulate original thoughts
5.1) formal level, this concerns the debate about whether a particular type of law is preferable.
5.2) substantive level – What general policy conceptions should the law follow?
6) Analysis of ‘law and reality’
• First Part - Why law exists ?
• Second Part What are the consequences of the law?
• Meso – Macro+ Micro

10. • SCIENTIFIC –
1 ) law and economics constructs models of how the law behaves.
2) experimental legal research can be used to test these and other models.
3) quantitative methods and
4) case studies (interviews)
• NON-LEGAL TOPICS RESEARCH - Start with a general question which is not
about the law.