Legal research is a systematic finding or ascertainment of law on an identified topic or in a given area. Additionally, it is a legal inquiry into the existing scholarship to advance the science of law.
Case law research and analysis is a prerequisite in the process of legal research. The method of acquiring this skill starts as soon as one embarks upon the journey of learning, studying, exploring and most importantly applying the law in a practical scenario.
Reading a case law, comprehending the rationale behind the decision and relating it to the present case to build a compelling and coherent argument is a skill every lawyer not only aspires to acquire. In order to become proficient and accomplished in their chosen profession, every lawyer must be skilled in finding relevant case laws through different means. One can learn several legal research techniques to find relevant case laws in legal databases.
Read on to find out several tools and techniques of Legal Research.
What are the different types of Legal Research?
Different types of research are crucial in case law research as they provide varied perspectives and information. Legal research helps identify relevant statutes, regulations, and precedents.
By utilizing these different research methods, researchers can obtain a comprehensive understanding of the legal landscape and make well-informed arguments or decisions in case law research. There are several legal research methodologies available for researchers to pursue their research.
1. Descriptive & Analytical Research
Descriptive research methodology focuses more on the “what” of the subject than the “why” of the research question. It is a description-based methodology that studies the characteristics of the population or phenomenon. The analytical research, however, uses the facts and information available to make a critical evaluation.
2. Qualitative & Quantitative Research
Qualitative legal research is a subjective method that relies on the researcher’s analysis of the controlled observations. In Quantitative Legal Research, one collects data from existing and potential data using sampling techniques like online surveys, polls, & questionnaires. The researcher can represent the outcomes of the quantitative study numerically.
3. Doctrinal & Empirical Research
In doctrinal legal research, the researcher analyses the existing statutory data to find the relevant answer to “What is the Law?” However, in empirical research, the researcher creates new data using several data collection methods and uses statistical tools to analyze it.
What is the Case Law Technique in Legal Research?
Case laws are the primary sources, i.e., the most original source, used in all legal research methodologies.
The case law technique in legal research methodology studies judicial opinions or decisions, and it is the technique of finding relevant legal precedents and principles. This is more challenging than it sounds because finding applicable case laws from legal databases is confusing and time-consuming, if the researcher is not well-versed with the tools.
Like legislation, case law can also be challenged and consequently change over time, as per the changing needs of the society. An earlier decision does not guarantee that it will always remain the law of the land.
Therefore, a lawyer must be skilled at finding, reading, and ascertaining the relevance, applicability and legal standing of any case law at a given point of time. . Thus, the importance of case law technique in legal research is quite significant as there can be no legal research without delving deep into judicial decisions.
How to Do Legal Research for Case Laws?
Before the time of the web, legal databases were in the form of multi-volume bulky books and digests. Researchers had to locate the cases manually with the help of case citations which was extremely time consuming. Though these periodicals are still available, online legal databases have overpowered them owing to their easy accessibility and time-saving tendency.
The Offline Tools for Legal Research
The researcher can locate case laws using the citations in printed law reporters. For example, the citation of a case is AIR 2017 SC 57, here the name of the Law Reporter in which the case law is published is AIR (All India Reporter), the year of the judgment is 2017, SC (Supreme Court) is the name of the Court, and the page number of the printed reporter on which the judgment can be found is 57.
The format of citation differs for every law reporter. Thus, the first step for locating the proper case law using citation is to decode the name of the law reporter.
The law reporters also categorize all the case laws. Thus, if the researcher does not know the case citation, they can find the case law as per its category.
The Online Tools for Legal Research
Using online tools for finding case laws is relatively easy. Even if the researcher does not know the name, citation, or year of the judgment, they can still find the same or similar judgments, thanks to these online tools’ intelligent features.
The only drawback is the majority of these tools require a heavy subscription fee which is not ideal for everyone.
What are the Methods of Locating Relevant Case Laws?
A researcher can locate relevant case laws if they know either of the following:
Citation
The identity of the case in law reporters, usually denoted in a combination of words & numbers.
For example: (1973) 4 SCC 225; AIR 1973 SC 1461
Case number
The official number the Court gives to a particular case.
For example: W.P.(C) 135 OF 1970
Name of the Parties
Either party’s name can be used for finding the case law.
For example: Petitioner’s name- Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalvaru
Respondent’s name- State of Kerala
Jurisdiction
A researcher can filter their finding by deciding which Court’s judgment they want to look for.
Statutes
A researcher can refer to various statute-based legal databases while finding a case law pertaining to a particular statute.
For example: The Labour Law Reporter publishes judgments specifically related to the Labour Laws of India.
How to Find Relevant Case Laws in India?
The Offline Tools
The Supreme Court Reports (SCR) are the only authorized Indian law report series, and Supreme Court decisions should be cited from here whenever possible. However, Supreme Court Reporters are about four years behind in publishing the cases. Because of the long delay in the publication of the SCR. Therefore, it is entirely acceptable to cite a few unauthorized reports in academic and judicial work.
All India Reporter (AIR) is often cited in preference to the SCR, and in the Indian courts it has the status of an authorized series. The Law Library has the AIRs in print.
Online Tools
- Supreme Court of India at main.sci.gov.in. All the latest judgments by the Supreme Court of India are available here.
- Judgment Search Portal at judgments.ecourts.gov.in/pdfsearch/index.php : You can find the old Supreme Court Judgments here by entering any related keyword. It can be the citation of the case, name of the parties, case number, nature of the case, etc.
- SCC Online at www.scconline.com: India’s premier legal database with access to complete coverage of the Supreme Court, all High Courts, Tribunals and Commissions, Statutory Material and many foreign jurisdictions’ and International material. Individual registration is required to use this online legal database.
- AIROnline at www.aironline.in: Again, a subscription-based legal database which covers the judgments of all Supreme Courts, all High Courts, Tribunals and Commissions. The subscribers can find the case laws through citations, individual words, or exact phrases.
- Manupatra at www.manupatrafast.com: Indian case law coverage includes full-text decisions from the Supreme Court, all High Courts, the Federal Court, Privy Council and many tribunals. It covers judgments from the inception of each Court. The legislations covered include bare acts, amending acts, repealed legislation, subordinate legislation and bills from all jurisdictions. The primary material is grouped by topic; the secondary material comprises annotated legislation and commentary.
- Indian Kanoon at indiankanoon.org contains unreported decisions and is more up-to-date by a few days than the unreported cases on Manupatra or SCC Online. It goes back further (for example, Supreme Court cases started in 1947 in Kanoon and 1950 in Manupatra).
If you are looking for very recent decisions or if it is optional to access a reported version of the case, use Kanoon. Citation, party names, keywords, Court, date range etc., can search it. Researchers can also browse Indian Kanoon by Court and year. Indian Kanoon is also free!
However, Indian Kanoon tends to provide fewer parallel citations than Manupatra. It relies on user-generated content, lacks official verification, may contain outdated or inaccurate information, and sometimes does not provide comprehensive access to all relevant legal materials and judgments.
Conclusion
The approach to case law research has changed globally and in India due to technological advancement. According to statistics, roughly 33.9% of lawyers begin their research by using Google. Because Google is a generic search engine, the search results may sometimes be vague. Hence, case law databases or search engines that are tailor-made for lawyers emerge.
Lawctopus Law School’s Legal Research & Writing Course helps law students and legal professionals in understanding a crisp way to conduct Legal Research of different techniques and the right way to use legal databases.
Source: Lawctopus
