The skill in being able to research a legal problem effectively and relatively quickly is fundamental to the study and practice of law.  Follow the 5 tips below for guaranteed success:

1 Know your Law Library

In order to carry out effective research in a manner that is not time consuming or counter-productive it is imperative that a sound knowledge of the law library is acquired. Library tours, although they may take up to 30 minutes or even one hour of time during the first weeks of term, such time is not only well spent in familiarising yourself with the materials the library has and finding out where to locate them; but will, in my experience, save an enormous amount of time when essay deadline periods loom – or even last minute research in preparation for examinations.  Moreover, tours and demonstrations may assist in developing confidence to use a law library effectively and will doubtless reduce delay in finding required materials to begin research.

2 Primary and Secondary Sources

It is easier to start research from secondary sources (textbooks, articles, journals, etc…) and build up research to the primary sources (Acts of Parliament, Statutory Instruments, etc…).   Upon finding references to primary material it is important that such material must also be read; sheer reliance on secondary sources will probably have the effect of diluting the meaning that the primary source was intending – either due to the writer’s own viewpoint or idiosyncrasies.  Therefore, a failure to read and cross-refer secondary material with primary material risks misunderstanding and confusion that will invariably have wider ramifications.

3 Law Reports

Law Reports cover all areas of law and can be wide in scope, focus on a specific jurisdiction or concentrate on a specialist area.  In the course of research, (now knowing of course where to locate the Law Reports in your law library), the next potential problem is being able to identify the Law Reports from their initials used in citation.

While some citations are well known to students for example, WLR (Weekly Law Reports) and All ER (All England Law Reports), others may not be.  Where the latter is the case, initials of citations can be found in Raistrick: Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations. Furthermore, when researching on-line, the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies has citation listings at the following address http://ials.sas.ac.uk/library/guides/docs/guide7_abbreviations.pdf

4 On-line Research

An effective legal researcher ought to have the ability to use paper sources as well as being able to navigate through a variety of on-line legal materials.

Lawtel UK is an extremely good primary and secondary research aid.  It has reported and unreported cases from 1980 with links to full texts and transcripts; contains the full texts of UK statutes in their original form from 1987 onwards; Statutory Instruments from 1984 onwards as well as including details of the date of commencement or amendments and has, in its Articles Index, summaries of articles from over 50 legal journals.

Searching on Lawtel UK involves entering keywords. To widen a search, use keywords in the singular or do a cross-database search which will allow a user to search for the same keyword(s) in more than one database.  To narrow down a search, try using conjunctions in capital letters e.g. drive AND driving. Using an asterisk will represent missing letters. e.g. drive* will find drive, driving, driven, etc.

Accessing Westlaw UK may require having an Athens User ID and password.  Once on-line, there are the search options of quick search, multiple database search, and table of contents which all appear on the left-hand side of the screen.  Quick search is useful for specific searches and a drop down menu gives a list of options to search from; moreover, the case locator option can be found here which (after typing in a few basic details of the case and pressing go) provides a brief synopsis of the case and a link to a full text law report where one exists. Within Westlaw’s case locator lies a history button that gives the previous and subsequent history of a case; further, where a red flag appears, this indicates that a case has been reversed or superseded.

Like Lawtel UK, Westlaw UK consists of many large databases of case law, legislation, legal journals and articles and maybe seen as an alternative source of on-line research – if time allows, try experimenting with different on-line sources to see which research aid suits you the best.

5 Ensuring Research is Up To Date

Legal Research is of little use if it is out of date.  In these current times where the law is evolving and developing at such an rapid rate it can prove difficult ensuring that any legal research is accurate.

Many details in textbooks may even be out of date on publication day, therefore it is vital to try and keep updated as frequently as possible.  Lawtel maintains that its databases are updated daily and Westlaw ensures that its case law database is also updated on a daily basis with the legislation and journal databases being updated weekly.

One last piece of advice when undertaking legal research is to always ensure, as a discipline, that it is followed through to its logical conclusion.  If there are Cumulative Supplements or a Noter-Up service (as when using Halsbury’s Laws) then make use of such materials – it is quite usual not to find anything, but this is a good sign as no amendments or updates being made mean the law found is still good law.  However, where something new is found during the updating process it may lead a research trail taking a different path; such a path will invariably involve conducting fresh research on previously undiscovered material that ought to lead to positive and conclusive results.

Research skills can only be acquired, honed or further developed by actively and continually conducting legal research.   As neither law student or practitioner can possibly know every law that exists, good legal research skills are therefore essential.  In today’s legal landscape being a good lawyer is not only about having erudition in the law, but increasingly is about knowing where to look should problematic or convoluted scenarios arise.

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