Legal Research Scope & Application:

 

Legal Research Scope & Application:

Meaning of Legal Research implies scientific and purposive investigation or inquiry of a problem or issue of any discipline. Likewise, legal research is a scientific investigation into a legal issue or problem and the process of gathering evidence or information for ascertaining an assumption or verifying some hypotheses. Like other research activities, legal research is a systematic and methodical study directed towards developing new knowledge or verifying existing knowledge.

 Legal research is not merely concerned with the technical knowledge of the law. Rather one of the purposes of legal research is to find out philosophical or policy advice in law. Legal research is an inquiry and investigation made by judges, lawyers, and legal researchers in the quest for a deeper and fuller understanding of the true nature of legal problems.  It seeks to explain on various aspects of the legal system, the legislative and judicial process, and the nature and function of law in society. Legal research is also concerned with “the understanding and internal coherence of legal concepts and legal reasoning.

Legal research is not a mere description of facts but a purposive investigation to explain or interpret a legal phenomenon. It goes beyond description and requires analysis. In this sense, it is a creative process and involves normative activities. Legal research is diligent, and continued search is for the more probably accepted answer to a legal question.

Legal Research is the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support judicial decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a problem and concludes with the application and communication of the investigation results.

However, legal Research generally suggests such tasks as:

·         Find primary sources of law or central authority in a given jurisdiction (cases, statutes, regulations, etc.)

·         Searching secondary authority (for example, law reviews, legal dictionaries, legal treatises, and legal encyclopedias such as American Jurisprudence and Corpus Juris Secundum) for background information about a legal topic; and

·         Searching non-legal sources for investigative or supporting information

Legal research is also necessary for to highlight ambiguities and inbuilt weaknesses of law, and to critically examine legal provisions, principles, or doctrines to see consistency, coherence, and stability of law, to make suggestions for reform of the law. Legal research is an important element of the modem system of legal education. Legal education performs several related functions: attaining theoretical knowledge, practical training, and a general education contributing to proper legal reasoning, effective communication, and ethical responsibility. 

Legal research is critically important for initiating legal reform and change in society. Legal research may be driven by current and proposed legislation’s social, political, and economic implications. Law must keep pace with social change. Law has to either respond to social change or initiate social change. Because of changing social, moral, political context, many laws may lose their relevance or seem inadequate to meet society’s needs. Legal research can help find out the laws which are old and need reforms.

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