So if you`re just starting out, don`t get discouraged if you find legal research difficult – almost everyone does it first. With enough time, patience and dedication, you will master the art of legal research. Whether you`re a law student or an experienced lawyer, learning extensive legal research (or improving your existing legal research process) is a skill that can give you a competitive edge. Learning excellent legal research techniques – from developing a more efficient research process to adopting cloud-based tools to conduct better, faster and smarter legal research – will help you better support your cases and clients. If you want even more tips on how to conduct smarter legal research, you`ll find this blog post useful. How can you check if you are using the “right” law? Use a citator. Citators allows you to verify the authority of a case by obtaining a cataloged list of cases, laws, and legal sources, as well as a history and precedent for those sources, so you can then check if they have not been rescinded, challenged, or rendered irrelevant. Creating search queries is an essential skill when it comes to legal research. Although many legal research platforms, including Bloomberg Law, offer natural language search, searching for terms and connectors (also known as Boolean) remains an important legal research skill and should be used when searching for legal opinions, files, legal issues, and other primary and secondary sources. Whether you`re a student still studying at law school or an experienced lawyer with years of experience, strong research skills are essential to creating a winning argument. That`s why it`s so important to know how to do legal research, including how to get started and the steps to follow. In the past, the legal research process was tedious, in part because it linked the researcher to a physical location – whether it`s a local legal library or a law firm computer – to access resources through legal databases.
Alternatively, lawyers may need legal research to simply provide accurate legal advice to clients. And in the case of law students, they often use legal research to fill out memos and briefings for courses. However, these are just a few of the situations where legal research is needed. Bloomberg Law`s ai-powered tools significantly reduce the time it takes to conduct legal research. Whether you`re looking for quick answers to legal research definitions or general advice on the legal research process, Bloomberg Law`s Core Litigation Skills Toolkit has it all. How should I use technology to improve my legal research? Instead of spending hours researching, Comparing Laws allows you to quickly see how a law has changed over time. So if that`s the primary law you want, it makes sense to look at it first, right? Not so fast. While you need primary legal sources to support your case, in many cases it`s much easier – and more efficient use of your time – to start your research in secondary sources such as practice guides, articles, and legal articles.
As laws evolve in different jurisdictions, it can be difficult to keep up with legal developments. Equally discouraging is the ability to pursue and better understand stakeholder strategies and legal responses. Without quick and easy access to the right tools, the legal research on which case strategy depends can face challenges in terms of cost, human resources, and process outcomes. Large legal databases all have their own Citator tools. For example, Casetext offers SmartCite, which “uses a flag system to indicate case processing.” Casetext can also help you “assess whether a case is good law and find other relevant cases that cite that opinion.” Whether you`re new to legal research or have been doing legal research for years, once you have a solid understanding of the process, use strategies and tools to maximize the effectiveness of legal research. There are three strategies to consider here: Primary legal sources are essential to legal research, as they establish the current law on each legal topic you work with. The main sources you can find by searching legal research databases such as Fastcase or Casetext include: Before writing an application or brief, look for examples of lawyers who have filed with the court in similar cases. You can probably find up-to-date examples in your company`s internal document system or search Bloomberg Law files. If possible, look for things that have been filed before the same judge so you can get a quick review of the rules/procedures to follow (and if possible from the same partner so you can get an idea of their style preferences). When it comes to the practice of law, we often think of legal experience. But even the most successful legal argument will ultimately fail without solid legal research. Then, use the critical information in your case to determine your legal problem.
By determining your client`s legal issues and ideal outcomes before you start researching, you can create a clearly defined framework that allows you to: since these books are written for lawyers, they use legal jargon that can make them difficult to understand, so be prepared to search for unknown terms in a legal dictionary. Legal research and analysis is the process used by lawyers to determine which laws apply to the facts of their case, what facts are relevant to their claim, what type of appeal they can seek in court, and what other cases might influence the judge`s decision. But what kind of law do you need? The answer: the primary sources of law. Some of the most important types of primary law are: Tools such as legal issues, scraps of paper, and short analyzers can also increase efficiency, especially if you narrow down your searches to confirm that you have everything to the essentials. In the past, lawyers had to spend many hours (and a lot of money) searching through multiple court notices to make sure they didn`t miss a case to the point. Now, there are tools that can significantly speed up this process. For example, if you search on legal issues, you may be immediately redirected to other cases where the same legal principle is discussed. In the next section, we will give you an idea of how to find specific legal information online and offline. Sharon Miki writes for Clio on legal technology and legal affairs. As an experienced freelance writer and professional writer, she is passionate about creating fascinating, useful and well-researched articles. TexasLawHelp`s mission is to provide free and reliable legal information to low-income Texans. The information on TexasLawHelp can give you a general idea of the law before you start a more intensive legal research.
This information can also help you determine where to start your legal research. The process of applying the law to the facts of your case and advocating for a particular outcome requires more training than a single guide can provide. This guide does not replace the expertise of a lawyer, especially when the results of legal research are presented to a judge in court. One of the most important steps in any legal research project is to check if you are applying a “good” law – meaning that a court has not declared it invalid or has not overturned it in any way. .
