National Law University and Judicial Academy, Assam

EVOLUTION OF LEGAL RESEARCH: A SOCIO-

LEGAL PERSPECTIVE

A Rough Draft submitted to

The National Law University and Judicial Academy, Assam
In partial fulfilment of the requirement of Paper I
(Legal Research Methodology)

SUBMITTED BY- SUPERVISED BY -

Manash Pratim Hazarika Prof. Gurjeet Singh

Saif Ali Khan Asst. Prof. Thangzakhup Tombing

Simona Sahira Waheed

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY AND JUDICIAL ACADEMY, ASSAM

7TH September, 2012

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INTRODUCTION
Legal research is the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support
legal decision-making. It is one of the aspects of study of human behaviour, their interactions,
and attitudes pertaining to any law under the research study. In its broadest sense, legal
research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a
problem and concludes with the application and communication of the results of the
investigation.

According to Austin, “Law is a rule laid down for the guidance of a being by an intelligent
being having power over him.”1
The processes of legal research vary according to the country and the legal system involved.
However, legal research generally involves tasks such as:
1. Finding primary sources of law or primary authority, in a given jurisdiction (cases,
statutes, regulations, etc)
2. Searching (for example, law reviews, legal dictionaries, legal treatises, and legal
encyclopaedias such as American Jurisprudence and Corpus Juris Secundum), for
background information about a legal topic
3. Searching non-legal sources for investigative or supporting information

Legal research is carried on both for discovering new legal facts and verification of old
ones. It tries to give solutions to legal problems. Legal research is performed by anyone
with a need for legal information, including lawyers, law librarians, and paralegals.
Sources of legal information range from printed books, to free legal research websites.

Socio-Legal perspective:
Socio-legal research is one of the aspects to study human behaviour, their interactions, and
attitudes pertaining to any law under the research studies. A law is of prime importance in
the social life of human beings whose activities are regulated and controlled by law. Law
has to be dynamic and must change as per the social needs and requirements, it cannot be
static. Since, social factors and facts are responsible for the occurrence of changes in law, it
is necessary to modify laws from time to time. If no changes are made in law, the social
growth and social development including its planning and progress will be affected. So a

1
Myneni S.R, Legal Research Methodology, 2012, page no-11,15

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law has to keep pace with the social advancement and progress. Legal Research has too
evolved with the changes taking place in the society.

LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Legal Research: Historical Foundations of the Electronic Age2

By George S. Grossman
Book Description: An outstanding anthology, perhaps the best book I have ever seen
relating to legal research. It is insightful, scholarly, accurate, and readable. Many
interesting issues are encompassed in a well organized presentation. Maintaining that the
development of legal research tools has been a fundamental and integral part of the history
of law, this comprehensive anthology includes selections and notes on court reports,
digests, legislative codes, administrative regulations, citations, treatises, law reviews and
other sources, concluding each section with a description of the research tools of today and
the impact of computers on modern legal research. Readings also examine the impact of
legislative publications on the judicial interpretation of statutes, the attempts to bring under
control the growing mass of information generated by modern-day administrative
regulation, the interrelationship between the development of court reporting and the use of
judicial decisions as precedents, and the effect of scholarly literature on the growth of the
law

Synopsis: A research is one of our urges to know and thus it leads to creating our curiosity
endlessly of knowing everything which we come across and so it is not the end of it but it
is a beginning of new search which always raises a new question.

2
Grossman George S., Legal Research: Historical Foundations of the Electronic Age, Oxford University Press,
USA, 1994

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2. Methodologies of Legal Research3

By Mark Van Hoecke

Book Description: Until quite recently questions about methodology in legal research have
been largely confined to understanding the role of doctrinal research as a scholarly
discipline. In turn this has involved asking questions not only about coverage but,
fundamentally, questions about the identity of the discipline. Is it (mainly) descriptive,
hermeneutical, or normative? Should it also be explanatory? Legal scholarship has been
torn between, on the one hand, grasping the expanding reality of law and its context, and,
on the other, reducing this complex whole to manageable proportions. The purely internal
analysis of a legal system, isolated from any societal context, remains an option, and is still
seen in the approach of the French academy, but as law aims at ordering society and
influencing human behaviour, this approach is felt by many scholars to be insufficient.
Consequently many attempts have been made to conceive legal research differently. Social
scientific and comparative approaches have proven fruitful. However, does the introduction
of other approaches leave merely a residue of 'legal doctrine', to which pockets of social
sciences can be added, or should legal doctrine be merged with the social sciences? What
would such a broad interdisciplinary field look like and what would its methods be? This
book is an attempt to answer some of these questions.

Synopsis: Research is a creative process and includes investigation or inquiry, discovery or

invention or experimentation to find out the truth with evidence contained in the product.

HYPOTHESIS
The hypothesis is that legal research has evolved in the socio-legal perspective and is an
instrument of legal reforms and social change.

3
Hoecke Mark Van, Methodologies of Legal Research, Hart Publishing Ltd., 02/2011

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OBJECTIVES
 To study about Legal research and its evolution.
 To study the role of research in the reformation of laws.
 To study research in connection with social and legal system.
 To make a comparative study on traditional research methods and modern research
methods

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Approach to research

In this project, we have adopted Doctrinal research. Doctrinal research is essentially a

library-based study, which means that the materials needed by a researcher may be
available in libraries, archives and other data-bases. Various types of books were used to
get the adequate data essential for this project. We also used computer laboratory to get
important data related to this topic. Several good websites we found which were very
useful to better understand this topic.

Type of research

This is clearly an exploratory type of research. In an exploratory study the researcher

works on a relatively unstudied topic or area of knowledge with purpose of finding out
unknown or partially known facts.

Sources of data collection

Data has been collected from secondary sources like: books, web sources etc. No any
primary source like survey data or field data was collected.

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CHAPTERISATION (TENTATIVE)

Chapter 1: Legal Research and its evolution

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Process of Legal Research
1.3 Socio-Legal Perspective
1.4 Literature Review
1.5 Research Methodology

Chapter 2: Role of research in legal reforms

2.1 Research of existing laws
2.2 Rectification of faulty laws
2.3 Creation of new laws

Chapter 3: Legal research in connection with social and legal system

3.1 Need of legal research in Sociology
3.2 Need of legal research in Legal studies

Chapter 4: Different approaches of legal research

4.1 Traditional approach
4.2 Modern approach
4.3 Comparative analysis

Conclusion
Bibliography

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books/ Articles

1. Myneni S.R, Legal Research Methodology

Publication: Allahabad Law Agency, 2012
2. Hoecke Mark Van, Methodologies of Legal Research
Publication: Hart Publishing Ltd. 2011

Web sources

1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11878498
2. http://www.law.washington.edu/Writing/Goals.aspx
3. http://www.abacon.com/graziano/ch15/index.htm

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