What is legal research? PDF

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IMPORTANCE OF LEGAL RESEARCH

1. INTRODUCTION Legal research is one of the most significant factors in the process of law reform but it does not consists only legal research. Almost for every project of law reform, legal research is a sine qua non for an adamantine foundation. The materials needed to be explored during a research vary according to several factors. These factors range from giving a few instances, status of the institution, time period given for the project and some other factors. The function of legal research is not same in law reform and in general. Writing an article has only one objective and that is the exploration of the topic in depth and arriving at a certain conclusion, suggestions for any changes or reforms are mentioned in the end of the article and these suggestions or recommendations are not the only objective of the article and they can be considered as bye products of the research. But during research concerning a law reform the whole research revolves around the proposals or suggestions made for the improvement in the current law. While making the proposals one need to be precise and the proposals should be based on concrete and easily identifiable matters. The proposals are needed to be in the mind of the researcher during the whole research and at every stage the proposals are the governing factors. This leads the research in a particular direction from the very beginning. Legal research required for the purpose of law reform projects there are a few factors which are common to all such projects. The majority part of legal research needed for law reform can be divided in three categories:(i) Analytical: Concerned with what the law is. (ii) Historical: Concerned with the history an evolution of the law. (iii) Comparative: Concerned with the comparable position with other countries.

The decision of focusing most on which one of these three categories depends on the subject’s nature, status and quality of available official, academic, and other material. There are a few minor factors also other than these three factors. It is needed to be identified the area covered by the subject of the research and divide the subjects into parts and distribute resources among the different parts. This will help in giving equal attention to all the sections.

2. What is legal research? For having a understanding of “The role of research in law reform”, it is necessary that we should know “what is legal research?” So, before we start discussing further about the topic here are some definitions of legal research. “Legal research can be defined as a process of finding the law that governs an activity and describes and analyzes that law.” “Legal research is a reasoned investigation to explain to interpret or define a legal phenomenon.” A number of processes ranging from gathering information to analyzing the facts of the problem and communicating the investigation results to support a legal decision-making. It includes finding primary sources of law and analyzing and collecting information them. Primary sources can include cases, regulations, acts. Legal research is an finding made by legal researchers, lawyers, judges, law students for understanding the aspects of legal problems deeply. Legal research can be called as a scientific investigation into a legal issue as in a scientific research evidence is collected to prove a fact that is not proven yet and in legal research information is collected to verify some hypothesis and it not only requires description but also analysis. Legal research just like any other research is a structured and well organised study for thriving new knowledge or supporting existing knowledge. Legal research is concerned with the philosophical arguments in law not merely with the technical knowledge of the law.

Legal research sheds light on various aspects of the legal system of a country. It is meant for understanding and internal coherence of legal concepts and legal reasoning. It involves choosing a hypothesis, classification of facts, use of both types of reasoning i.e. inductive and deductive reasoning, reaching to a conclusion. In total, it consists analyzing the facts of the problem, for making a conclusion the application of legal reasoning and ordering the legal doctrines in a well organized way.

Process of Research:The new researchers can be very well guided by the published materials on legal writing and research, but these published materials do not recognize the importance of how the research analysis is done. Although one of the most difficult task in doing research is to find and digest the voluminous materials, but in the case of legal research it is opposite, here the researcher finds it difficult to collect enough information regarding legal developments on certain topics or in certain countries. The approach towards a research vary from authority under whose auspices the research is conducted. If the authority is a departmental one then it would have different approach like it can meet on frequent basis, but its result of the research might be faded by the departmental point of view, and this would also be visible in the methods used. If the authority is has to suggest the law reforms related to a particular subject then it is not a departmental committee and its outlook will be wider and its methods will also be broad based. Time allowed to completing a project also lead to changes in methods used for the completion of the project. Methods may also differ according to subjects....