Unit-I-Introduction to Legal Research and
Writing

Introduction of Legal Research
 Introduction-Research is to see what everybody else
has seen and to think what no body else has thought as
told by Albert Szent Gyorgyi. Over all objective of
research is to find out the truth, the truth which is
hidden and not yet known. The root of research lies in
the solution of problems.

Introduction of Legal Research
 Research is directly proportional to the development
and development is directly proportional to the
reformation of society. Research is inseparable part of
human knowledge.

Meaning of Research
 Research is derived from French word recerch
meaning to search or seek again. It means to
investigate thoroughly.Re+Search=To search again. To
seek or search for new facts or to modify older ones.
Treatment of materials. Research is defined as human
activity based on intellectual application. The primary
purpose of research is discovering, interpreting.

Meaning of Research
 It includes reading books,newspapers,magazines,
pamphlet, advertisement, watching news, surfing
internet. Webster’s International dictionary proposes a
very inclusive definition of research as ‘’a careful
critical inquiry or examination in seeking facts or
principles in order to ascertain something. P. V. Young
defines research as social research as the systematic
method of discovering new facts or verifying old facts.

Meaning of Research
 R.R.Rusk defines research as an attitude of inquiry or a
frame of mind.
 According to Francis Bacon ‘’Research is a power of
suspending judgment with patience of mediating with
pleasures, of ascertaining with caution or correcting
with readiness and of arranging thought with
scrupulous plan.’’

Meaning of Research
 According to Slazenger & Stephenson ‘’Research is the
manipulation of things, correct or verify knowledge.
 It is scholarly investigation in search for truths, facts &
for certainties. It is self correcting process. Research
Methodology is defined as body of methods, rules &
postulates.

Nature & Importance of Research
 Research is one of the biggest industries of modern
times. It contribute to the enlightment of knowledge.
It helps to solve many complex problems of the society.
Research inculcates intellectual skills that helps to
grasp the concepts deeply. The intensive knowledge of
research enables a person to judge the research of
others and can understand the reality behind.

Nature & Importance of Research
 Research has become an integral part not only of academic
but also for all the area of human activity including
sociology, economics,science,natural sciences, industrial
engineers, physicians,surgeons,management & commercial
world in their day to day decision making. Research
requires a specific plan of procedure.

Nature of Research
 Research strength lies in the originality of his
investigation, analysis & evaluation. Research
inculcates scientific & inductive thinking which is a
foundation for birth of good researchers in the world.
The Greeks, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle gave a
direction to philosophy of thought & developed their
concept of the relationships of man to society.

Scope & Objective of Legal Research
 In Aristotle’s work, his assertions are field observations
& process of research.
 Research may be done by analysis, critical
interpretation, comparative study & exploratory
research.
 One golden rule is that researcher should be very clear
about the hypothesis of his work that is, what he is
looking for, what he is going to prove or disprove.

Scope & Objective of Legal Research
 Research is the gathering of evidence or information
for ascertaining an assumption or verifying some
hypothesis.
 Research is an inquiry for the verification of a fresh
theory or for supplementing prevailing theories by
new knowledge.

Characteristic of Good Research
It is based on the work of others.
It is based on some logical
rationale and tied to theory. In a
way that it has the potential to
suggest directions for future
research.
It generates new questions.

Characteristic of Good Research
It addresses directly or indirectly
some real problem in the world.
It clearly states the variables or
constructs to be examined.
Valid and verifiable such that
whatever you conclude on the
basis of your findings is correct
and can be verified by you and

Motivating factors for Research
 The research should be directed towards the solution
of respondent’s problem.
 The nature of the problem or topic must have social
relevance.
 The researcher should clearly spell the goals of
research.
 The respondents must be informed about the matters
concerning objectives of the research. The more a
person knows about its subject matter, the more
interest and concern he will develop.

Motivating factors for Research
 Participation in a research activity does not mean
simply the involvement of the respondents in giving
information on a topic or problem. In real sense,
participation is an individual’s mental and emotional
involvement in research solutions that encourage him
to contribute to research and to share the
responsibility for it.

Motivating factors for Research
 Research has proved to be a significant and powerful
tool in bringing social progress. Without scientific
social research there would be very little progress. The
results of social research will provide us with the
possible means to bring solution to different social
problems. Research opens new avenues and provides a
better alternative to us. It enhances the efficiency of all
the agencies and organizations engaged in the
development of society.

Significance and Limitations of Scientific
Methodology
 Research is not merely information gathering.
 Research is not mere transportation of facts from one
location to another.
 In research there is a need to travel from the world of
transportation of facts to the world of interpretation of
facts.
 Research requires an open mind search for truth.
 The researcher does not aim at proving something but
at discovering some thing.

Research and Scientific Methods
 The researcher must seek to discover what no one else
yet knows and he should produce evidence of hard
thinking.
 Role of law in society. Spirit of innovation and
exploration.
 Changed economic,political,social & cultural
institutions.
 Research more meaningful & acceptable academic
contribution.
 A venue of quest, inquisition or investigation.

Research and Scientific Methods
 Specific or well defined domain.
 Capable of being based upon observable data.
 Logical interpretation of research.
 Current Trends-
 Project Researchers in law.
 NLU has given boost in legal research.
 Empirical research in 21st century.
 Law & Sociology applied in society by business,
finance & Government.

Research and Scientific Methods
 Law & Political Science-Comparative Politics,
International Politics, Political Philosophy, National
Politics, Electoral Politics, Regional and local Politics.
 Political scientific study concerns the allocation and
transfer of power in decision making.ics, Regional and
local Politics.
 Law & Psychology-Psychology is the science of mind
and behaviours.

Research and Scientific Methods
 It’s immediate goal is to understand humanity by both
discovering general principles and exploring specific
cases.
 Information & communication technology-Piece of
work that advances human knowledge.

Importance of Legal Research in
Common Law and Civil Law
Systems
 Common law system says what moral principles guide
your research?
 How do ethical issues enter into your selection of a
research problem?
 How do ethical issues affect about conducting of your
research-the design of your study, your sampling
procedure etc.?
 What responsibility do you have towards your research
subject?

Importance of Legal Research in
Common Law and Civil Law
Systems
 Civil law system says the privacy of research subjects.
 What will happen to data once collected? To whom
will they be availed?
 What repercussions might there be for the individual
in providing certain data to a social researcher?
 Obligation to Society.
 Obligations to fund providers and employer.
 Obligations to colleagues.
 Obligations to subjects.

Importance of Legal Research in
Common Law and Civil Law
Systems
 Studying human behavior.
 False information to a instructor concerning a formal
academic exercise.
 Plagiarism is the adoption or reproduction of the ideas
or words or statements of another person without due
acknowledgement.
 Fabrication is the falsification of data, information or
citations in any formal academic exercise.

Importance of Legal Research in
Common Law and Civil Law
Systems
 Sabotage is when a student prevents others from
completing their work. This includes cutting pages out
of library books or willfully disrupting the experiments
of others. Sabotage is usually only found in highly
competitive cutthroat environments.

Classification of Legal Research
 Doctrinal Research-Doctrinal Research asks what
the law is on a particular issue.
 It is concerned with analysis of the legal doctrine and
how it has been developed and applied.
 It is theoretical research.
 It consists of either a simple research or a depth
analysis of legal reasoning.
 Systematic analysis of statutory provisions and of legal
provisions.

Doctrinal Research
 Logical and rational understanding of legal principles.
 Doctrinal is the library based research. Library based
research is predicted upon finding the one right
answer to a particular legal question or set of
questions. The researcher must determine the relevant
rule or rules of law applicable to the identified issues.
This stage involves relevant primary material.Whether
the research is based on international law or domestic
law.

Doctrinal 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.

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

Merits of Doctrinal Research
 For practical purposes, idiosyncratic research
methodology is required. The busy practitioner tends
to be concerned with the law “as it is” and rarely has
the time to consider research that does not fit within
that paradigm and timeframe. Moreover, because of its
focus on the sources of jurisprudence, established
research is more manageable and results more
predictable. For the postgraduate studies researcher,
this may help with meeting deadlines and contain
surprises.

Demerits of Doctrinal Research
 Several criticisms may be leveled against doctrinal or
library based methodology. For example, it is highly
theoretical and technical, uncritical, conservative,
trivial and without due consideration of the social,
economic and political importance of the legal
process. Second, it must be noted that ideological
research is very narrow and restricts the choice and
range of topics, which increasingly withdrew the legal
profession in the greater social context.

Non-Doctrinal Research
 Non-doctrinal research, also known as social-legal
research, is research that employs methods taken from
other disciplines to generate empirical data that
answers research questions. It can be a problem,
policy, or a reform of the existing law. A legal non-
doctrinal finding can be qualitative or quantitative,
and a dogmatic non-doctrinal finding can be part of a
large-scale project.

Non-Doctrinal Research
 Non-doctrinal finding can be part of a large-scale
project. The non-doctrinal approach allows the
researcher to conduct research that analyses the law
from the perspective of other science disciplines, and
to employ those disciplines in drafting the law.

Non-Doctrinal Research
 Legal research is experimental and valuable in
detecting and explaining practices and procedures in
legal and regulatory systems. It is also valuable in the
settling disputes, and impacts the legal phenomena of
social institutions and businesses. Similarly,
experimental legal research in economics applies legal
analysis, statistical inference, and economic modeling,
to the core areas of national and international law,
such as tort, property, contracts, criminal law, law
enforcement and litigation. Earlier research can be
used to analyze the economics of legal negligence
theory.

Evaluative Research
 Evaluative: To find out how a legal fact (rule, concept,
institution or the legal system itself) came to be what
it is. This method of enquiry naturally takes the legal
researcher into non-legal or extra-legal fields for
gathering the required information.

Explicative Research
 To ascertain the nature, scope and source of law in
order to explain what law is, and also to spell out the
several propositions, parts and facts of law and the
legal system. Research in this category aims at
expounding the logical coherence of concepts,
elements, facts and interests of legal phenomena
individually, of their relationship inter se and their
relationships with the concepts, elements, facts and
interests outside the legal system for determining and
defining the terms and presuppositions used in law.

Projective Research
 To anticipate the effect of a proposed legal measure.
These studies are mainly attitudinal, intended to
anticipate the probable response in terms of rejection
or acceptance of a proposed measure. The purpose is
to identify the parties who stand for and against the
measure and locate determinant variables and
situations for peoples' apathy or sympathy.

Collative Research
 To collate legal facts pertaining to a given situation. It
may be by way of preparing a digest of statutory
provisions, judicial decisions and customary law or
preparing bibliographies of legal materials including
legal writings. It would be a mistake to regard this type
of research as inferior to other types of legal research
mentioned above. Properly collated legal material
which is reliable. reasonably exhaustive and classified
logically, is as much a contribution to legal writing as
any other material.

Impact Analysis Research
 To analyze the impact of an established or a newly
conceived legal provision, rule or institution. Study of the
impact of laws becomes urgent when legislative action is
used for planning. Law is an integral part of the general
social processes and such study is increasingly resorted to
for organizing society in an orderly manner, and the legal
system is a very significant part of the larger social system.
A legal fact sets into motion action and inaction in various
areas and, generally, in society; it also affects other co-
existing sub-systems and thereby the social system itself.
Similarly other social processes and sub-systems affect the
law and the legal system.

Impact Analysis Research
 Thus, impact analysis is the study of the effect of law
in, and on, the society. Its aim is primarily to assess the
actual working of the legal order in terms of the
satisfaction of the expected object of a given legal
provision. As a constructive review, it helps monitor
the success or failure of a given provision, locate the
bottlenecks, if any, and finally revise the provision. It is
a preliminary step to law reform.

Interpretative Research
 To interpret an existing formal legal fact. Normally, it
is done by combining the researcher's logic with
corroborative evidence of authoritative opinion on the
point. This is the most common kind of legal research
so far undertaken. Fundamentally, it is collative in
nature, though highly annotated. Normally statutes,
texts and judicial decisions are the subject-matter of
research in this category.

Legal Writing meaning and Scope
 Legal writing involves the analysis of fact patterns and
presentation of arguments in documents such as legal
memoranda and briefs. One form of legal writing
involves drafting a balanced analysis of a legal problem
or issue. Another form of legal writing is persuasive,
and advocates in favor of a legal position. Another
form legal writing involves drafting legal instruments,
such as contracts and wills.

Legal Writing meaning and Scope
 Legal writing places heavy reliance on authority. In
most legal writing, the writer must back up assertions
and statements with citations of authority. This is
accomplished by a unique and complicated citation
system, unlike that used in any other genre of writing.
The standard methods for American legal citation are
defined by two competing rule books: the ALWD
Citation Manual: A Professional System of
Citation and The Blue Book: A Uniform System of
Citation. Different methods may be used within the
United States and in other nations.

Legal Writing meaning and Scope
 Legal writing values precedent, as distinct from
authority. Precedent means the way things have been
done before. For example, a lawyer who must prepare
a contract and who has prepared a similar contract
before will often re-use, with limited changes, the old
contract for the new occasion. Or a lawyer who has
filed a successful motion to dismiss a lawsuit may use
the same or a very similar form of motion again in
another case, and so on.