Research

• Research- gathering of data, information & facts

for advancement of knowledge.
• A scientific systematic investigation to establish
facts.
• Should follow a series of steps & a standard
protocol.
• Research is of two types:-
 Doctrinal Research
 Non Doctrinal Research
 Doctrinal Legal Research
• Research into legal rules, doctrines, principles & concepts.
• It is rigorous systematic exposition, analysis & critical evaluation of
legal rules, principles & decisional processes & their underlying
policy.
• DLR involves:-
 Systematic analysis of statutory provisions & of legal principles
involved their in or derived there from.
 Logical & rational ordering of legal propositions & principles.
 It is basically a research into law. It is an analysis of black letters of
law.
• This research is called Traditional/ Arm Chair Research.
• This Research- carried on by Judges, Lawyers & Law teachers.
 Tools of Doctrinal Legal Research
• Statutory Materials
• Reports of Committees
• Legal History
• Judgments, case reports & case Digest.
• Standard Textbooks & reference books.
• Legal Periodicals
• Commentaries
• Govt. Reports
• Parliamentary Debates
• E- resources
 Aim of Doctrinal Legal Research
• Study case law & statutory law in order to find
relevant law.
• Looking into purpose & policy of law that exists.
• Studying legal institution
• Assessing the consistency & certainty of Law
• Arranging existing law in order & providing
parameter for such order.
• Critical review of legislations & their decisional
processes along with their underlying policy.
Advantages of Doctrinal Legal Research
• Researcher always engaged in research work. It is
less time consuming.
• Provides lawyers, judges & others with
instruments needed to reach a legal decision.
• Helps in continuity, consistency & certainty of
law.
• Provides quick answers to legal problems.
• Helps in predicting how legal principles, concepts
or doctrines would proceed in future.
Dis-Advantages of Doctrinal Legal Research

• Based on individual analysis of researcher & perception

of legal fact of one researcher may vary from another
researcher.
• Not go beyond sphere of Law.
• Gap b/w actual social behavior & behavior demanded
by legal norm. DLR- don’t address these gaps.
• DLR- emphasis on traditional sources of law & judicial
pronouncements of appellate Courts.
• DLRs merely theoretical & fair away from social reality.
Such a research is incomplete & inadequate.
 Non Doctrinal Research

• Known as empirical research.

• Based on experience & observation.
• Talks about how law & legal institutions affect human attitudes & what
impact on society they create.
• Concerned with people, social-values & social institutions.
• New techniques used.
• More importance to society & people.
• Wider in scope.
• Imparting training essential for collection & use of sources.
• Field work- most imp. Ingredient.
• It is an enquiry that attempts to discover & verify gen. rules allowing
to understand why human beings behave the way they do.
 Tools of Non-Doctrinal Legal Research

• Interview
• Questionnaire
• Schedule
• Observation/ Participant or non- Participant
• Sampling
• Case- study
• Published or Un-published Materials
Advantages of Non-Doctrinal Legal Research

• Tries to find out impact of non-legal events

upon legal decision.
• Seeks to identify & appraise degree of variables
influence the outcome of decisions.
• Tries to find out effect of each decision on
people & society as such legal decision making.
• Involves several new techniques which are
unknown to research.
 Dis-Advantages of Non-Doctrinal Legal
Research
• Financial support lacking
• Use of qualitative measurement techniques are
difficult to understand.
• Unfavorable attitude towards empirical research.
• Lack of training in use of techniques of this
research.
• Techniques like collection o data, field work,
formation of hypothesis- unknown to legal
researcher.
 Conclusion
• NDR- mainly concerned with legal decision
process i.e. researcher’s attention is on
variables that influence decision & the impact
of decision on society.
• Talks about research into relationship of law
with other behavioral sciences.
• Here, more importance is given to people,
social values & social institutions which are
related to legal aspects doctrines.
Advantages/ Sources/ Importance of Legal
Research
 Techniques of Legal Research
• Sampling- basic technique where we select group of
subjects for study from a larger group. Each individual is
chosen entirely by chance & each member of population
has an equal chance of being included in sample.
• Observation- process of recognizing & noticing people,
objects & occurrences rather than asking for information.
• Questionnaire- set of specific questions. Data collected
on basis of it. It is a formal list of questions designed to
gather responses from respondents on a given topic.
• Interview- verbal tech. of obtaining data. commonly used
method. Direct method of data collection.
Techniques of Legal Research Continues…

• Survey Method-means to oversee something.

Used to collect data when a wide geographical
area has to be concerned. In this questions
asked from representatives of cross-section of
population at a given point of time.
• Case Study Method- it aims at studying deeply
& thoroughly diff. aspects of a social unit. This
method is about exploring & analyzing life of a
person, institution, family or a community.
 Citation
• Appears main text of paper.
• Way of giving credit to information that you
have specifically mentioned in research paper.
• Leads reader to original source of information.
• Citation in research papers used to inform or
to elaborate a particular concept in paper.
• Way to support research findings in results
section.
 Bibliography
• List of resources that appears at the end of research paper or an
article.
• List of all sources used in process of researching work.
• Contains information that may or may not be directly mentioned in
research paper.
• It should include:
 The author’s name
 The titles of the works
 The names & location of the companies that publshed copies of the
sources.
 The dates copies were published.
 The page no. of sources.
 Difference B/w Citation & Bibliography

Citation Bibliography
1. To lead a reader toward a 1. To provide a list of all relevant
source of information sources of information on
included in text. research topic.
2. It is main text. 2. At the end of text not
3. Minimal denoting only the necessarily linked to an in-
text citation.
essential components of
the source such as 3. Descriptive: gives all
numbering, names of first information regarding a
& last authors etc. particular source for those
who want to refer to it.
 Statute
• A statute, is a law that has been enacted by a legislature,
which is the body that has been granted the power by a
constitution to enact legislation, or laws. When a statute
is passed, it becomes law and therefore part of statutory
law. The federal legislature of the United States is the
United States Congress. Each state has its own
legislature, which enacts laws for that state. Once
enacted by the legislature, statutes are signed into law
by the chief member of the executive branch - the
president for federal statutes and the governor for state
statutes.
 Classification of statutes

Statutes may be classified into 12 types:

Codifying statutes are those statutes which are in written form. The code contains the
pre-existing as well as the existing common laws
Consolidating statute:
These statutes are those statutes which consolidate the law on a particular subject at one
place.
 Declaratory statute:
declaratory statute is a statute to remove the doubts arising in future. For example the
word declared is used in the preamble of every statute generally but not necessarily.
Mere the use of expression declared does not make the statute a declaratory statute.
 Remedial statute:
a remedial statute is one in which a remedy is provided. Its main object is to make
improvements in the enforcement of one's right and for the redress of wrongs. For
example- maternity benefits act, 1961, the workmen's compensation act 1923.
 Enabling statute:
Enabling acts are one which makes the certain acts lawful which are generally unlawful.
It makes such provision legally valid in the eyes of law. Such a statute grants power to
make certain rules without prejudice to foregoing general provision.
 Disabling statute:
a disabling statute are one which cuts down the right conferred by the common law.
 Classification of statutes

Penal statutes are those which are providing different penalties for different offences. It is a statute
which punishes the certain acts or wrongs. For example; Indian penal code, 1959, Prevention of
food and adulteration act, 1954
Taxing statute:
taxing statute is one which is im posing taxes on certain goods and services. It can be in the form of
income tax, gift tax, wealth tax, sales tax, etc. its object is to collect the revenue for the state's
welfare. It is the source of revenue generation for the state.
 Explanatory statute:
these are the statutes which explains the law or in other words remove the doubts or clarify the
ambiguity arising in the previous tatute. For example; Royal mines act, 1963 was passed in order to
remove the ambiguity arising in the previous statute i.e; Royal mines act 1688. The Royal mines act,
1963 was enacted for the better explanation of the earlier act.
Amending statute:
amending statute is one which makes changes in the original law by addition so as to effect an
improvement. For example; Direct taxes amendment act, 1974, criminal law (amendment) act, 1983.
Repealing statute:
repealing statute is one which removes or repeals the earlier statute. The termination of provision
may be the express or explicit language of the statute.
Curative or validating statute:
A curative or validating statute is one which is passed to remove the defects in the previous law and
to cure the defects of the prior law. A validating statute normally contains the expression
notwithstanding any judgment order or decree of any court.
 Reports
• A law report is a record of a judicial decision on a point of law which
sets a precedent.
• Not all decisions taken in a court of law set a precedent, however
interesting they may be in terms of the facts of the case or its
consequences. A decision is only reportable if lays down a new
principle of law, or changes or clarifies the existing law.
It is therefore important to:
• distinguish between those cases which do indeed lay down, change
or clarify the law, and which therefore need to be reported, and
those which don’t; and
• ensure that any report of a reportable case clearly states all the
relevant information so that it can be relied upon by students,
teachers, practitioners and judges as an accurate and authoritative
statement of the principle of law (the “ratio decidendi”) on which
the case was decided.
 Types of law report
Law reports fall into two broad types.
• Full text law reports incorporate the full
judgment(s) given by the court, together with a
summary of the case known as the head note and
a number of other elements.
• Summary reports, also known as case summaries,
digests, case notes etc, consist of summaries or
abridgements of the judgment, and are presented
in a less formal way than a full text law report.
 Law Journal
• Law review and law journal articles are lengthy, scholarly
articles written by experts in the field on a variety of legal
topics.
• The full-text of journal articles can nowadays be found in
several different locations, both in print and electronically.
Characteristics:
• Written by experts in the field
• Very detailed analysis of particular issues in law
• Contain many references to expand research
• Not regularly cited in legal arguments
 Online law Journal
• The following are several electronic resources for locating the full text of law review
and journal articles:
• The following are several electronic resources for locating the full text of law review
and journal articles:
• HeinOnline
• Use Hein's Law Journal Library for access to the full run of many law reviews and bar
association publications.
• Westlaw
• Lexis Advance
• Bloomberg Law
• Digital Repository (Maurer School of Law)  
• More and more, journal articles are being added to their schools' digital repositories
(such as ours, linked to above). If you do not have a paid subscription to the databases
listed above, checking the website of the school that publishes your desired law
journal is an excellent strategy.
 Manuals
A manual provides instructions or guidelines on
how to perform an activity and serves as a
reference book on the activity. Different types
of manuals include: Policy manuals. Procedure
manuals etc.
 Bill
• A Bill is a proposal for a new law, or a proposal to
change an existing law that is presented for debate
before Parliament.
• A Bill is the draft of a legislative proposal which has
to pass through various stages before it becomes an
Act of Parliament.
• After both the House have approved a bill in identical
form, the bill is sent to the President. If the President
approves of the legislation, it is signed and becomes
law
 Act
• An Act is a decree that is passed by the respective legislature,
such as the State Legislative Assembly or the Parliament of
India. A subset of law is an act. Law ensures that people
adhere to the established norms and regulations.
• An act is a term for a formal body of law. Frequently, a
collection of provisions regarding the same subject are known
as an act.
• Distinction between an Act and a Law -The main difference is
that an Act is passed by the legislative branch, but a Law is a
set of rules and regulations enforced by the government. The
major distinction between an Act and a Law is that an Act is a
bill passed by parliament, whereas a Law is a set of rules and
regulations enforced by a government.