Legal Research
Practicing law requires good legal research. So important is it to future success, law schools require that students take a class in how to do it correctly. For some lawyers, this becomes a career path that they follow, opting to do research for other lawyers instead of practicing for themselves. Here’s a quick rundown of who does legal research, what they search, and how it’s done.
Who usually does legal research? Law students often have to do legal research to work on class projects and assignments. It is common for paralegals and lawyers to do legal research to prepare a case or write a brief. Individuals might also do some legal research before pursuing a case in small claims court, or if representing themselves in a criminal or civil case. There are also professional legal researchers. These people are hired by lawyers to do the legwork necessary on legal research for them. Those who write articles also hire legal researchers to help them collect relevant sources.
What types of sources are searched? Research usually involves both primary and secondary sources. Primary sources, in this context, mean the actual laws, statutes, and codes passed at the city, county, state, and federal level. Court decisions and other documents from actual cases are also primary sources. A lawyer will use the text of the laws themselves to help them understand how best to represent a client. Rulings made in other cases are used by lawyers to convince the court to interpret the law in a certain way and to give the lawyer some insight into how others handled cases based on the same law.
A secondary source would be commentary or other documents written about the law. Lawyers use secondary sources to help explain what the laws mean and to get an idea of how they are often applied, but they aren’t used in court. A secondary source might give a lawyer some context as to how the laws have been interpreted in the past and help them determine how that interpretation can help them in their current case, for example.
How is legal research done? A legal researcher might use books of printed decisions and other court documents, for example. Legal encyclopedias are used to find information, as well. The actual text of the laws is also often published in book form.
When computer databases became common, though, it really changed how people approached legal research. With a computer-based system, relevant sources could be found based on keywords instead of having to look up cases and laws in indexes. The Internet made these legal databases available to users all over the world. There are both free and paid legal research services that can be used by students, professionals, and interested laypeople. Indeed, the bulk of legal research today is probably done via one of these services.
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