How to Do Legal Research Effectively? Methods & Pro Tips

If you are a lawyer, this question has been lingering in your mind for quite a while now. It strikes you every time a new case lands on your table and you are about to start the vicious cycle of legal research again. The sheer volume of legal materials you need to study is just so overwhelming. And as if that weren’t enough, they are also scattered across various sources and databases, so you need to go back and forth repeatedly before you spot the relevant case law.

How can you go about it in the right way to make the legal research process less time- and effort-consuming? Read on to find out.

But first, let’s start with some theory.

Legal research definition

What is legal research? Legal research is a multifaceted process that requires lawyers to do a comprehensive analysis of various legal sources with the aim of finding information relevant to a specific legal issue or question. It involves searching for statutes, regulations, case law, and legal opinions to understand and apply the law to a particular set of facts or circumstances at hand.

The purpose of legal research is to back the lawyer’s decision with proofs from reputable legal authorities like courts, tribunals, or the state, which are believed to be a primary source of law. But the necessity to perform legal research may come from different motivations, some of them being:

• Case preparation (to build strong winning arguments)

• Legal advice (to understand the legal implications of the client’s situation)

• Regulatory compliance (to make sure a particular business, activity, or industry is within the established legal framework)

• Lawmaking (to propose legislative changes, or contribute to the development of a new legal framework)

• Education (as part of the academic studies of law students and scholars)

  
  

Depending on the reason, the scope of legal research will also differ. For example, regulatory compliance may require less investment in terms of time and the spectrum of issues that the lawyer has to navigate through as it often revolves around a very specific problem, while case preparation is a complex task and thus, has to be approached with meticulous attention to detail and a versatile mindset as it may bring up multiple legal research topics.

For the purposes of this article though, we’ll focus on the two most popular reasons for law research — case preparation and legal advice.

Importance of legal research

Why is legal research important? Beyond being a mere academic exercise, legal research has the power to shape landmark decisions, turn the case outcomes in your favor, and ensure justice is served in an unbiased manner. If you properly research the law, you will always be able to make the best out of the legal scenario you are dealing with.

Case preparation

That’s the most obvious scenario, yet the most comprehensive one, because in legal proceedings, the odds of one party winning over the other hinges on the strength of the arguments they present, as well as the supporting evidence. To build a case effectively, a legal researcher has to identify all relevant statutes, regulations, and principles that apply to the legal issues in the case and interpret them in a compelling way. Exclusive attention is paid to case law research. Case law establishes legal precedent and if a lawyer can find cases similar to the one under consideration, they can use them as a playbook. By relying on such cases, lawyers prove that the law supports their argument and thus, can persuade the court to tip the scales of justice in their favor.

Legal advice

Whenever a client comes to a lawyer and asks for insights into their situation, they expect the legal professional to have a complete understanding of their problem and present the most favorable solution to it. Often, lawyers can’t do it right away as there might be blind spots in the client’s situation that are likely to incur unexpected legal ramifications if not addressed accordingly, and in time. Legal research helps to form a solid basis for well-informed decision-making. Once a legal professional learns how the law applies to the specific facts and circumstances of the client’s matter, they can craft accurate recommendations, legal strategies, and a potential course of action — all grounded in the relevant legal authorities.

As you can see, the significance of legal research in the law profession can't be overstated. Regardless of how complex the legal issue you are dealing with is, historical data most likely has the solution to it already. You only need to notice it when analyzing legal materials and discerning patterns. Here’s how to do it right.

Legal research process & best practices

The law is rarely clear-cut. It often contains ambiguous or conflicting information, making laymen confused about interpreting and applying it correctly. That’s why the practice of law is all about clearing up this uncertainty and giving accurate answers to various legal questions. If you are unable to find those answers in reliable legal research sources, you will have a hard time proving yourself a competent lawyer in the public eye.

We’ve compiled this guide to legal research in order to make the process more structured for you.

Start by outlining your legal research strategy

Although the overall principles of legal research are fundamentally the same no matter the legal system, the exact steps that you are going to take will vary depending on the type of information you are looking for and the depth of your awareness about the legal issue under study.

Say you simply need an explanation of a particular law. What you want to do is to go directly to law commentaries or legal encyclopedias and get a quick answer there. This is essentially a 1-step process that doesn’t require much planning or strategizing on your part. On the other hand, if you grapple with a daunting case that has many unknowns, no surprise you will also struggle to understand where to start conducting legal research. In this instance, you won’t find a way around it without a well-thought-out research strategy. You will likely want to start by identifying the legal issues at hand, formulating research questions, and only then conducting searches across legal databases.

So always keep certain steps in your head — or even better, write them down — that should be followed during research. That way you can be more confident that your effort will produce the desired result.

Use reliable sources of legal research

We’ll break no new ground here if we say that there are two types of legal research sources — primary and secondary — and both are used in research. The key difference between them is in the scope of their authority.

1. Primary sources are court judgments and legislation such as the constitution, statutes, regulations, etc. They are the most authoritative of all as they have a binding power. Make sure you use the primary sources of legal research as the first point of reference because they are the original source of law.

2. Secondary sources are all other legal materials like law journals, dictionaries, commentaries, and encyclopedias. Although they do not have any binding power, they still hold a persuasive authority and are often used by lawyers to complement their legal research.

Remember, however, to evaluate legal research sources before using them. Just because a certain source is believed to be reputable doesn’t mean that it is error-free or always up-to-date. For example, in India, the judicial system is very dynamic. Cases change status fast, which makes it difficult to track their developments. As a result, commercial legal databases may lack the most recent cases, and can even be 2-3 months behind the official case law publishers at times. Along with this, such databases often reformat the original materials and add their own opinions or interpretations to them. If you use such materials as the foundation of your research and cite them in your case, be ready for the court to reject it.

That’s why you want to always check sources of legal research for the following:

• How current is it? When was it last updated?

• Is it relevant to the jurisdiction of your interest?

• What is its level of authority?

• Does it contain quality materials (accurate, unbiased, etc.)?

If you doubt the presented information for whatever reason, make sure to double-check it in the actual source of law (i.e. primary source).

Have a ‘protocol’ for legal research

And there you have it — a practical framework for how to find relevant case law or any other supporting legal material. You can either use it as it is or update it to fit your workflow.

Starting point

If you are starting at ground zero, you have to narrow the scope of legal research first. A good starting point would be 1) a legal topic, 2) jurisdiction, or 3) legislation. These can in turn bring you to a landmark case that will serve as a solid basis for further research.

Pre-research

Now, it’s time to come up with the main keywords, as well as alternative words, because you need to capture all relevant information during a legal search. The good news is that you have already grasped some of them at the first stage. To get the rest, run a general search in secondary sources. For example, in India, there are several law repositories that you can use for this purpose, such as India Code (for legislative acts), LiveLaw or Bar & Bench (for legal news).

Case law research

The existing databases for legal research in India are keyword-based and thus, follow the principles of Boolean search. It means you can create specific search strings with several keywords using Boolean operators like AND, OR, and NOT. This gives you a better chance of stumbling upon the court judgment that meets your research needs.

Along with Boolean search, most Indian law libraries come with various filters (by judge, counsel, party name, dates, etc.). Don’t neglect them, use them to further limit the results. Once you have a list of pre-selected cases, don’t dive directly into reading their original texts one by one. Instead, go through short summaries provided by legal research tools to get a sense of the cases and sort out the irrelevant ones.

Now, you can proceed with the original case texts. Guess what? You can still do some filtering at this point without reading them all through. Check whether the document contains the necessary keywords in the right context. For this, scan the parts where they are mentioned. If they resonate with the legal scenario at hand, read the case fully, analyze relevant parts, and review cases cited there for more depth. Make sure to rely on the cases that are still “good law”.

Keynotes

Always take legal research notes. Maintain them within any convenient means — be it on paper or a computer. Save all helpful links, citations, case names, etc. so you can save time and avoid searching for sources again if you decide to get back to that information.

Drafting

Equipped with a wealth of knowledge acquired through research, you can finally proceed with drafting documents that accurately reflect the parties' intentions, comply with applicable laws, and effectively communicate legal arguments. And all of this is backed with the actual precedents.

Lifehacks from practicing lawyers — Q&A

Q.1: It seems that legal databases ‘do not understand’ what I am looking for; what should I do?

Try Google search. For its search mechanism, Google uses AI and machine learning to understand the intention of your request and can suggest relevant results even if there’s no exact match with the keyword you provide. Once Google returns a relevant case or law, you can then go and check it via official law publishers to get the original text.

Q.2: When analyzing the judgment, what should I pay special attention to?

The rationale of the court’s decision. It gives you an understanding of what was the judge’s perspective on the facts surrounding the case and the particulars of the claim within the light of the applicable law. You can then use this logic in building your argument, which can help you win over the judge — especially, if you rely on the logic of this particular judge in deciding previous cases.

Q.3: What if I have too many similar cases even after taking all the filtering steps described above? How to prioritize?

First of all, you can limit the number of cases to reportable ones. These cases are cited in courts more often and are considered binding. Also, you can start with the Supreme Court judgments and proceed with the High Court rulings only if there’s still not enough persuasive information. And finally, pay attention to the number of judges on the bench. The larger the bench — the more authoritative the case is.

Q.4: Are there any free yet accurate databases for case law in India?

Since case law must be available to the general public, you can always find judgments via court websites. All of them have a custom search engine with the option of finding cases by number, date, parties, judge or bench, as well as ‘free text’ if you want to search using specific keywords. Also, there’s a new initiative supervised by the Supreme Court of India — eSCR. It has all the judgments of the Supreme Court and the High Courts in one place.

Q.5: What are some popular tools of legal research in India?

There are several: some of them come with typical keyword-based search, and others take things a step further and add contextual smart search to their mechanism. The first group includes SCC Online and Manupatra. And the second group is represented by innovative AI startups so far, one being CaseResearchAI. It comes in the form of a virtual assistant designed to understand the lawyer’s requests even if they do not use specific keywords. The app understands what information the lawyer is looking for by context. You can try CaseResearchAI in a free demo mode to compare with more traditional tools of legal research.