Carrying out legal research effectively

When tasked with a legal research assignment, your primary goal is to find 'authority' to help you answer a particular legal problem.

'Authority' is weighted depending on your source. Primary authority includes legislation - acts of parliament and regulations - and also cases. How binding a case is will depend on what court it has been heard in - for example, House of Lords decisions bind every court below the House of Lords and will usually be followed by the House of Lords themselves (although not always).

Secondary authorities include a wide variety of legal material - legal dictionaries, commentaries etc. A popular secondary source in the UK is 'Halsbury's Laws of England' which explains the law in context, in an easy-to-understand format. All primary authorities on a particular point are provided by Halsbury's, making it an excellent legal research tool. Secondary authorities explain what the law is or should be but they aren't binding. However, it's not uncommon for them to be referred to by the Courts, particularly where they are respectable publications.

A good legal dictionary is an excellent and cheap way to start when it comes to finding the answer to a point of law. Other popular research tools include Westlaw, LexisLibrary, HeinOnline and Lawtel. These are databases of legal material including legislation, cases, journals and commentaries. Halsbury's is found under LexisLibrary.

For lawyers and barristers, a good way to get legal research completed is through legal process outsourcing. This means farming out their legal research to external companies who have law graduates and law professionals available to complete it. It saves the lawyer having to employ a full time support staff member to cover this role. Many other kinds of legal task can be outsourced as well as legal research.

You can find out more about law research on the Legal Research Services website.