Legal Research Strategy

Preliminary analysis, organization, secondary sources, primary sources, updating research, identifying an end point, getting help, about this guide.

This guide will walk a beginning researcher though the legal research process step-by-step. These materials are created with the 1L Legal Research & Writing course in mind. However, these resources will also assist upper-level students engaged in any legal research project.

How to Strategize

Legal research must be comprehensive and precise.  One contrary source that you miss may invalidate other sources you plan to rely on.  Sticking to a strategy will save you time, ensure completeness, and improve your work product. 

Follow These Steps

Running Time: 3 minutes, 13 seconds.

Make sure that you don't miss any steps by using our:

  • Legal Research Strategy Checklist

If you get stuck at any time during the process, check this out:

  • Ten Tips for Moving Beyond the Brick Wall in the Legal Research Process, by Marsha L. Baum

Understanding the Legal Questions

A legal question often originates as a problem or story about a series of events. In law school, these stories are called fact patterns. In practice, facts may arise from a manager or an interview with a potential client. Start by doing the following:

Read > Analyze > Assess > Note > Generate

  • Read anything you have been given
  • Analyze the facts and frame the legal issues
  • Assess what you know and need to learn
  • Note the jurisdiction and any primary law you have been given
  • Generate potential search terms

Jurisdiction

Legal rules will vary depending on where geographically your legal question will be answered. You must determine the jurisdiction in which your claim will be heard. These resources can help you learn more about jurisdiction and how it is determined:

  • Legal Treatises on Jurisdiction
  • LII Wex Entry on Jurisdiction

This map indicates which states are in each federal appellate circuit:

A Map of the United States with Each Appellate Court Jurisdiction

Getting Started

Once you have begun your research, you will need to keep track of your work. Logging your research will help you to avoid missing sources and explain your research strategy. You will likely be asked to explain your research process when in practice. Researchers can keep paper logs, folders on Westlaw or Lexis, or online citation management platforms.

Organizational Methods

Tracking with paper or excel.

Many researchers create their own tracking charts.  Be sure to include:

  • Search Date
  • Topics/Keywords/Search Strategy
  • Citation to Relevant Source Found
  • Save Locations
  • Follow Up Needed

Consider using the following research log as a starting place: 

  • Sample Research Log

Tracking with Folders

Westlaw and Lexis offer options to create folders, then save and organize your materials there.

  • Lexis Advance Folders
  • Westlaw Edge Folders

Tracking with Citation Management Software

For long term projects, platforms such as Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, or Refworks might be useful. These are good tools to keep your research well organized. Note, however, that none of these platforms substitute for doing your own proper Bluebook citations. Learn more about citation management software on our other research guides:

  • Guide to Zotero for Harvard Law Students by Harvard Law School Library Research Services Last Updated Sep 12, 2023 126 views this year

Types of Sources

There are three different types of sources: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary.  When doing legal research you will be using mostly primary and secondary sources.  We will explore these different types of sources in the sections below.

Graph Showing Types of Legal Research Resources.  Tertiary Sources: Hollis, Law Library Website.  Secondary Sources:  Headnotes & Annotations, American Law Reports, Treatises, Law Reviews & Journals, Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, Restatements.  Primary Sources: Constitutions, Treatises, Statutes, Regulations, Case Decisions, Ordinances, Jury Instructions.

Secondary sources often explain legal principles more thoroughly than a single case or statute. Starting with them can help you save time.

Secondary sources are particularly useful for:

  • Learning the basics of a particular area of law
  • Understanding key terms of art in an area
  • Identifying essential cases and statutes

Consider the following when deciding which type of secondary source is right for you:

  • Scope/Breadth
  • Depth of Treatment
  • Currentness/Reliability

Chart Illustrating Depth and Breadth of Secondary Sources by Type.  Legal Dictionaries (Shallow and Broad), Legal Encyclopedias (Shallow and Broad), Restatements (Moderately Deep and Broad), Treatises (Moderately Deep and Moderately Narrow), American Law Reports (Extremely Deep and Extremely Narrow), Law Journal Articles (Extremely Deep and Extremely Narrow)

For a deep dive into secondary sources visit:

  • Secondary Sources: ALRs, Encyclopedias, Law Reviews, Restatements, & Treatises by Catherine Biondo Last Updated Sep 12, 2023 1833 views this year

Legal Dictionaries & Encyclopedias

Legal dictionaries.

Legal dictionaries are similar to other dictionaries that you have likely used before.

  • Black's Law Dictionary
  • Ballentine's Law Dictionary

Legal Encyclopedias

Legal encyclopedias contain brief, broad summaries of legal topics, providing introductions and explaining terms of art. They also provide citations to primary law and relevant major law review articles.  

Graph illustrating that Legal Encyclopedias have broad coverage of subject matter and content with shallow treatment of the topics.

Here are the two major national encyclopedias:

  • American Jurisprudence (AmJur) This resource is also available in Westlaw & Lexis .
  • Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS)

Treatises are books on legal topics.  These books are a good place to begin your research.  They provide explanation, analysis, and citations to the most relevant primary sources. Treatises range from single subject overviews to deep treatments of broad subject areas.

Graph illustrating that Treatises are moderate in scope and relatively deep.

It is important to check the date when the treatise was published. Many are either not updated, or are updated through the release of newer editions.

To find a relevant treatise explore:

  • Legal Treatises by Subject by Catherine Biondo Last Updated Sep 12, 2023 1558 views this year

American Law Reports (ALR)

American Law Reports (ALR) contains in-depth articles on narrow topics of the law. ALR articles, are often called annotations. They provide background, analysis, and citations to relevant cases, statutes, articles, and other annotations. ALR annotations are invaluable tools to quickly find primary law on narrow legal questions.

Graph illustrating that American Law Reports are narrow in scope but treat concepts deeply.

This resource is available in both Westlaw and Lexis:

  • American Law Reports on Westlaw (includes index)
  • American Law Reports on Lexis

Law Reviews & Journals

Law reviews are scholarly publications, usually edited by law students in conjunction with faculty members. They contain both lengthy articles and shorter essays by professors and lawyers. They also contain comments, notes, or developments in the law written by law students. Articles often focus on new or emerging areas of law and may offer critical commentary. Some law reviews are dedicated to a particular topic while others are general. Occasionally, law reviews will include issues devoted to proceedings of panels and symposia.

Graph illustrating that Law Review and Journal articles are extremely narrow in scope but exceptionally deep.

Law review and journal articles are extremely narrow and deep with extensive references. 

To find law review articles visit:

  • Law Journal Library on HeinOnline
  • Law Reviews & Journals on LexisNexis
  • Law Reviews & Journals on Westlaw

Restatements

Restatements are highly regarded distillations of common law, prepared by the American Law Institute (ALI). ALI is a prestigious organization comprised of judges, professors, and lawyers. They distill the "black letter law" from cases to indicate trends in common law. Resulting in a “restatement” of existing common law into a series of principles or rules. Occasionally, they make recommendations on what a rule of law should be.

Restatements are not primary law. However, they are considered persuasive authority by many courts.

Graph illustrating that Restatements are broad in scope and treat topics with moderate depth.

Restatements are organized into chapters, titles, and sections.  Sections contain the following:

  • a concisely stated rule of law,
  • comments to clarify the rule,
  • hypothetical examples,
  • explanation of purpose, and
  • exceptions to the rule  

To access restatements visit:

  • American Law Institute Library on HeinOnline
  • Restatements & Principles of the Law on LexisNexis
  • Restatements & Principles of Law on Westlaw

Primary Authority

Primary authority is "authority that issues directly from a law-making body."   Authority , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).   Sources of primary authority include:

  • Constitutions
  • Statutes 

Regulations

Access to primary legal sources is available through:

  • Bloomberg Law
  • Free & Low Cost Alternatives

Statutes (also called legislation) are "laws enacted by legislative bodies", such as Congress and state legislatures.  Statute , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).

We typically start primary law research here. If there is a controlling statute, cases you look for later will interpret that law. There are two types of statutes, annotated and unannotated.

Annotated codes are a great place to start your research. They combine statutory language with citations to cases, regulations, secondary sources, and other relevant statutes. This can quickly connect you to the most relevant cases related to a particular law. Unannotated Codes provide only the text of the statute without editorial additions. Unannotated codes, however, are more often considered official and used for citation purposes.

For a deep dive on federal and state statutes, visit:

  • Statutes: US and State Codes by Mindy Kent Last Updated Feb 16, 2024 1144 views this year
  • 50 State Surveys

Want to learn more about the history or legislative intent of a law?  Learn how to get started here:

  • Legislative History Get an introduction to legislative histories in less than 5 minutes.
  • Federal Legislative History Research Guide

Regulations are rules made by executive departments and agencies. Not every legal question will require you to search regulations. However, many areas of law are affected by regulations. So make sure not to skip this step if they are relevant to your question.

To learn more about working with regulations, visit:

  • Administrative Law Research by AJ Blechner Last Updated Sep 12, 2023 242 views this year

Case Basics

In many areas, finding relevant caselaw will comprise a significant part of your research. This Is particularly true in legal areas that rely heavily on common law principles.

Running Time: 3 minutes, 10 seconds.

Unpublished Cases

Up to  86% of federal case opinions are unpublished. You must determine whether your jurisdiction will consider these unpublished cases as persuasive authority. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure have an overarching rule, Rule 32.1  Each circuit also has local rules regarding citations to unpublished opinions. You must understand both the Federal Rule and the rule in your jurisdiction.

  • Federal and Local Rules of Appellate Procedure 32.1 (Dec. 2021).
  • Type of Opinion or Order Filed in Cases Terminated on the Merits, by Circuit (Sept. 2021).

Each state also has its own local rules which can often be accessed through:

  • State Bar Associations
  • State Courts Websites

First Circuit

  • First Circuit Court Rule 32.1.0

Second Circuit

  • Second Circuit Court Rule 32.1.1

Third Circuit

  • Third Circuit Court Rule 5.7

Fourth Circuit

  • Fourth Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Fifth Circuit

  • Fifth Circuit Court Rule 47.5

Sixth Circuit

  • Sixth Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Seventh Circuit

  • Seventh Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Eighth Circuit

  • Eighth Circuit Court Rule 32.1A

Ninth Circuit

  • Ninth Circuit Court Rule 36-3

Tenth Circuit

  • Tenth Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Eleventh Circuit

  • Eleventh Circuit Court Rule 32.1

D.C. Circuit

  • D.C. Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Federal Circuit

  • Federal Circuit Court Rule 32.1

Finding Cases

Image of a Headnote in a Print Reporter

Headnotes show the key legal points in a case. Legal databases use these headnotes to guide researchers to other cases on the same topic. They also use them to organize concepts explored in cases by subject. Publishers, like Westlaw and Lexis, create headnotes, so they are not consistent across databases.

Headnotes are organized by subject into an outline that allows you to search by subject. This outline is known as a "digest of cases." By browsing or searching the digest you can retrieve all headnotes covering a particular topic. This can help you identify particularly important cases on the relevant subject.

Running Time: 4 minutes, 43 seconds.

Each major legal database has its own digest:

  • Topic Navigator (Lexis)
  • Key Digest System (Westlaw)

Start by identifying a relevant topic in a digest.  Then you can limit those results to your jurisdiction for more relevant results.  Sometimes, you can keyword search within only the results on your topic in your jurisdiction.  This is a particularly powerful research method.

One Good Case Method

After following the steps above, you will have identified some relevant cases on your topic. You can use good cases you find to locate other cases addressing the same topic. These other cases often apply similar rules to a range of diverse fact patterns.

  • in Lexis click "More Like This Headnote"
  • in Westlaw click "Cases that Cite This Headnote"

to focus on the terms of art or key words in a particular headnote. You can use this feature to find more cases with similar language and concepts.  ​

Ways to Use Citators

A citator is "a catalogued list of cases, statutes, and other legal sources showing the subsequent history and current precedential value of those sources.  Citators allow researchers to verify the authority of a precedent and to find additional sources relating to a given subject." Citator , Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).

Each major legal database has its own citator.  The two most popular are Keycite on Westlaw and Shepard's on Lexis.

  • Keycite Information Page
  • Shepard's Information Page

Making Sure Your Case is Still Good Law

This video answers common questions about citators:

For step-by-step instructions on how to use Keycite and Shepard's see the following:

  • Shepard's Video Tutorial
  • Shepard's Handout
  • Shepard's Editorial Phrase Dictionary
  • KeyCite Video Tutorial
  • KeyCite Handout
  • KeyCite Editorial Phrase Dictionary

Using Citators For

Citators serve three purposes: (1) case validation, (2) better understanding, and (3) additional research.

Case Validation

Is my case or statute good law?

  • Parallel citations
  • Prior and subsequent history
  • Negative treatment suggesting you should no longer cite to holding.

Better Understanding

Has the law in this area changed?

  • Later cases on the same point of law
  • Positive treatment, explaining or expanding the law.
  • Negative Treatment, narrowing or distinguishing the law.

Track Research

Who is citing and writing about my case or statute?

  • Secondary sources that discuss your case or statute.
  • Cases in other jurisdictions that discuss your case or statute.

Knowing When to Start Writing

For more guidance on when to stop your research see:

  • Terminating Research, by Christina L. Kunz

Automated Services

Automated services can check your work and ensure that you are not missing important resources. You can learn more about several automated brief check services.  However, these services are not a replacement for conducting your own diligent research .

  • Automated Brief Check Instructional Video

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  • Last Updated: Sep 21, 2023 2:56 PM
  • URL: https://guides.library.harvard.edu/law/researchstrategy

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Legal Research Basics: Guide outline

Legal research basics, guide outline.

  • Step 1: What is your research need?
  • Step 2: Map out your research strategy
  • Step 3: Undertake preliminary research
  • Step 4: Do the research and evaluate the results
  • Step 5: Finalise your research outcomes
  • General legal writing skills
  • I can just Google, right?
  • Study guides
  • Finding treaties
  • Citing treaties
  • Current awareness
  • The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot
  • International taxation
  • MLL444 - CyberLaw

Related Guides

  • Legal Referencing
  • Legal Abbreviations
  • Researching Secondary Law
  • Researching Case Law
  • Researching Legislation
  • Law and Legal Research Hub

Email your Librarians

Getting started with legal research

research outline in legal writing

This introductory legal research guide will help you to get started with legal research. Read through the outlines below to learn what is covered in each section of this guide. You can navigate to these sections via the menu on the left.

Key books: A list of useful legal research textbooks which can be used in addition to your prescribed resources.

Your first steps in legal research: This section is the first place you should start. It maps out the difference between primary and secondary sources of law. There are also some useful videos on developing key research skills.

Legal writing skills: Contains links to useful books and resources on legal writing skills.

Study guides: Links to commercial legal publishers short topical guides, including case notes and Q & A exam study guides.

International treaties: This section contains some useful resources on the Australian treaty making process, links to important treaties and examples of referencing styles.

Current awareness: How to keep up to date with new developments in the law, as well as a list of recent acquisitions.

Unit Help: Customised Library Resource Guides for specific unit codes.

Need help accessing library databases?

How to login.

Always access the legal subscription databases from the Library's A-Z databases page, Catalogue or a Resource Guide. You should only need to enter your Deakin Single Sign On credentials.

Recommended browser

If you experience any browser issues, Deakin University IT recommends the Microsoft Edge browser. More information is available on the Recommended Browser & Settings webpage.

Enable cookies

Some databases use cookies and/or have popup messages. Ensure that you enable popups for these databases in your internet browser. More information is available on the Recommended Browser & Settings webpage.

research outline in legal writing

Avoid using Google to access a subscription database, as you are likely to encounter paywalls.

What is FIND IT @ DEAKIN?

You will sometimes see a FIND IT @ DEAKIN link when you are searching for journal articles, and the full text is not immediately available.

FIND IT @ DEAKIN will provide you with possible options for locating the full text of the article if it is not available in full text from the database you are using.

Clicking on the FIND IT @ DEAKIN link will provide a link to other databases, to the library website, and other possible sources.  

  • Next: Key books >>
  • Last Updated: Feb 23, 2024 3:04 PM
  • URL: https://deakin.libguides.com/legal-research-basics

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Legal Research Manual

Develop an outline.

  • Stage 1: Frame Issues and Identify Keywords
  • Stage 2: Initial Research
  • Stage 3: Preliminary Integration of Research and Analysis
  • Stage 4: Intensive Case Research and Analysis
  • Stage 5: Statute/Regulation Research
  • Stage 6: Synthesize Arguments and Prepare Detailed Outline
  • Stage 7: Final Writing
  • Legal Encyclopedias
  • Legal Journal Literature
  • ICLL Search Tips
  • Literature from Other Disciplines
  • The Legislative Process (Federal)
  • Federal Statutes
  • The Legislative Process (Ontario)
  • Ontario Statutes
  • Finding Statutes & Bill Information (Electronic Sources)
  • Finding Statutes & Bill Information (Print Sources)
  • Coming Into Force of Legislation
  • Status and Copies of Bills
  • Online Sources
  • Print Sources
  • Sources for Regulations
  • Finding Federal Regulations (Online)
  • Finding Federal Regulations (Print)
  • Using Online Sources to Update Federal Regulations
  • Finding Ontario Regulations (Online)
  • Finding Ontario Regulations (Print)
  • Using Online Sources to Update Ontario Regulations
  • Anatomy of a Decision
  • Sources for Locating Full Text Decisions
  • Print Reporters
  • Digest Services
  • Lexis Advance Quicklaw - QuickCite
  • WestlawNext Canada - KeyCite
  • Digests and Encyclopedias
  • Sources for Case Law
  • Nominate Reports (pre-1865)
  • The Law Reports (LR)
  • Sources for UK Legislation
  • Federal Court System
  • State Court Systems
  • American Law Reports (ALRs)
  • Legal Encyclopedias and Digests
  • American Case Law
  • Case Citators: Shepard's and KeyCite
  • US Federal and State Legislation
  • Secondary Sources on International Law
  • Primary Sources of International Law
  • Secondary Sources on Foreign Jurisdictions
  • Primary Sources of Foreign Law
  • Finding Legal Information Online
  • Evaluating Online Information
  • American Legal Research Guides
  • British Legal Research Guides
  • International Legal Research Guides
  • Indigenous Research Guides
  • Topical Legal Research Handbooks
  • Empirical Legal Research
  • Appendix: Quick Legal Research Checklist

To focus both the research and the analysis, it is a good idea to develop a detailed written outline of how you plan to analyze the legal issues presented by the fact situation. The written outline is a work in progress. As you begin to research and analyze the relevant materials, you need to rework the outline. The outline will indicate where the analysis is strong (no further research is required) and where the analysis is weak (further research is required). The Legal Research Starting Points in this chapter is one approach to researching and analyzing a legal memorandum. The format for the memorandum is suggested in The Legal Writing Handbook . A more general approach to research is set out in The Craft of Research , but these are not the only approaches. There are many ways to develop an outline and there are many different formats for a legal memorandum. The key is to continue to develop an outline concurrently with the research and the analysis in order to focus the work. By the end of the research and analysis process, you will have a fully developed outline of your legal argument from which the memorandum may be written.

The legal solution to a problem (provided there is one) is determinable by the law as expressed in statutes and cases. The most efficient way to research these is often to use secondary sources, which include journal articles, textbooks, and encyclopedias, in order to identify relevant statutes and cases.

There is no magic to good legal research. There is no one way to do it effectively. The key is simply being knowledgeable enough about the sources so that that one can use them to retrieve the relevant law efficiently and effectively.   Determining what is "relevant" case law comes with practice. One cannot always retrieve every case on point, but one must attempt at the very least to retrieve the leading and precedent-setting cases.

This chapter outlines the kind of research strategies that may be employed when researching and analyzing a legal problem and describes which sources to consult and in what order. It provides a framework and a checklist to guide basic legal research.

When researching, it is important to remember the following:

  • As a general rule, try to use Canadian sources first. If that is not possible, note the jurisdictions covered by the secondary source you are using and remember that, although perhaps persuasive, it may not be an accurate reflection of the law in your jurisdiction.
  • Currency in legal research is fundamental. Note the date of the source you are consulting and update the law since that date. Remember to update beyond the secondary sources to find the most recent statutory amendments and the very latest cases.
  • The legal research process is not necessarily an orderly process. Exactly which sources are consulted and in what order depends on the researcher's knowledge of the subject area, and the particular area of law covered by the fact situation.
  • There are three major legal databases in Canada: the two subscription databases -- Lexis Advance Quicklaw Plus ( Lexis Advance Quicklaw for law students), WestlawNext Canada ( Westlaw Edge Canada for law students) -- and the open access CanLII . While they have some overlapping information, they also each contain unique legal information. As a law student, which one you use generally depends on the nature of the question and sometimes which interface and search algorithm you prefer. Once in practice, however, most law firms only have access to one of the paid databases, so it is good to become familiar with both, in addition to CanLII.
  • Research means just that -- re-search and re-search. To increase your chance of success, you should use a combination of different search tools and strategies each time you approach a legal research problem. Legal research involves finding a balance between locating every relevant case and precisely tuning your search to exclude all irrelevant cases. Begin your research by finding a core of relevant cases, and expand from there. Spend time planning your search by considering synonyms and different ways the same concept might be expressed. Consider if boolean searching will help, such as using truncation (i.e. searching to obtain various endings of the same "word stem") and appropriate connectors. Do a series of searches, and search in more than one database. Cross-check your results by narrowing or broadening the search and by searching both by fact as well as by legal concept.
  • It is good practice after consulting a particular secondary source to analyze and apply the information to the particular fact situation presented. You should be able to identify the issues, have relevant statute and case law references, and begin to organize your analysis of the problem. By doing this at each stage of your research, and before the next research step, you will save research time, identify those issues that need more research, and be able to identify what the next logical research source will be. For example, after consulting an initial secondary source you might want to make sure a particular statute has not been amended, or you might want to note up your references prior to continuing with a subject search.  
  • Finally, remember to leave enough time. Secondary sources are meant to be used to define legal issues, to gain an understanding of the law and to find relevant citations. It is extremely important to leave enough time to analyze the primary materials in relation to the facts, and to write up your results in a clear and concise manner. As the following writer emphasizes, legal analysis must be based on your reading of the relevant statutes and cases:  
Read the statutes and the cases! No digest, treatise, or case synopsis service can be a foolproof legal research tool. More often than not, the resources described in a digest, book, or article only provide the analytical framework for a substantive or procedural issue. Without a complete review of the cases, and thorough updating for more recent cases and statutes, a lawyer may find in the courtroom that incomplete research will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. --William Goodman, "Essential Research Tools for Criminal Defense Attorneys"
  • << Previous: Steps in Legal Research
  • Next: Stage 1: Frame Issues and Identify Keywords >>
  • Last Updated: Jan 16, 2024 1:13 PM
  • Subjects: Law
  • Tags: case law , common law , law , legal research , legal skills , legislation , regulations , statutes

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research outline in legal writing

How to do legal research in 3 steps

Knowing where to start a difficult legal research project can be a challenge. But if you already understand the basics of legal research, the process can be significantly easier — not to mention quicker.

Solid research skills are crucial to crafting a winning argument. So, whether you are a law school student or a seasoned attorney with years of experience, knowing how to perform legal research is important — including where to start and the steps to follow.

What is legal research, and where do I start? 

Black's Law Dictionary defines legal research as “[t]he finding and assembling of authorities that bear on a question of law." But what does that actually mean? It means that legal research is the process you use to identify and find the laws — including statutes, regulations, and court opinions — that apply to the facts of your case.

In most instances, the purpose of legal research is to find support for a specific legal issue or decision. For example, attorneys must conduct legal research if they need court opinions — that is, case law — to back up a legal argument they are making in a motion or brief filed with the court.

Alternatively, lawyers may need legal research to provide clients with accurate legal guidance . In the case of law students, they often use legal research to complete memos and briefs for class. But these are just a few situations in which legal research is necessary.

Why is legal research hard?

Each step — from defining research questions to synthesizing findings — demands critical thinking and rigorous analysis.

1. Identifying the legal issue is not so straightforward. Legal research involves interpreting many legal precedents and theories to justify your questions. Finding the right issue takes time and patience.

2. There's too much to research. Attorneys now face a great deal of case law and statutory material. The sheer volume forces the researcher to be efficient by following a methodology based on a solid foundation of legal knowledge and principles.

3. The law is a fluid doctrine. It changes with time, and staying updated with the latest legal codes, precedents, and statutes means the most resourceful lawyer needs to assess the relevance and importance of new decisions.

Legal research can pose quite a challenge, but professionals can improve it at every stage of the process . 

Step 1: Key questions to ask yourself when starting legal research

Before you begin looking for laws and court opinions, you first need to define the scope of your legal research project. There are several key questions you can use to help do this.

What are the facts?

Always gather the essential facts so you know the “who, what, why, when, where, and how” of your case. Take the time to write everything down, especially since you will likely need to include a statement of facts in an eventual filing or brief anyway. Even if you don't think a fact may be relevant now, write it down because it may be relevant later. These facts will also be helpful when identifying your legal issue.

What is the actual legal issue?

You will never know what to research if you don't know what your legal issue is. Does your client need help collecting money from an insurance company following a car accident involving a negligent driver? How about a criminal case involving excluding evidence found during an alleged illegal stop?

No matter the legal research project, you must identify the relevant legal problem and the outcome or relief sought. This information will guide your research so you can stay focused and on topic.

What is the relevant jurisdiction?

Don't cast your net too wide regarding legal research; you should focus on the relevant jurisdiction. For example, does your case deal with federal or state law? If it is state law, which state? You may find a case in California state court that is precisely on point, but it won't be beneficial if your legal project involves New York law.

Where to start legal research: The library, online, or even AI?

In years past, future attorneys were trained in law school to perform research in the library. But now, you can find almost everything from the library — and more — online. While you can certainly still use the library if you want, you will probably be costing yourself valuable time if you do.

When it comes to online research, some people start with free legal research options , including search engines like Google or Bing. But to ensure your legal research is comprehensive, you will want to use an online research service designed specifically for the law, such as Westlaw . Not only do online solutions like Westlaw have all the legal sources you need, but they also include artificial intelligence research features that help make quick work of your research

Step 2: How to find relevant case law and other primary sources of law

Now that you have gathered the facts and know your legal issue, the next step is knowing what to look for. After all, you will need the law to support your legal argument, whether providing guidance to a client or writing an internal memo, brief, or some other legal document.

But what type of law do you need? The answer: primary sources of law. Some of the more important types of primary law include:

  • Case law, which are court opinions or decisions issued by federal or state courts
  • Statutes, including legislation passed by both the U.S. Congress and state lawmakers
  • Regulations, including those issued by either federal or state agencies
  • Constitutions, both federal and state

Searching for primary sources of law

So, if it's primary law you want, it makes sense to begin searching there first, right? Not so fast. While you will need primary sources of law to support your case, in many instances, it is much easier — and a more efficient use of your time — to begin your search with secondary sources such as practice guides, treatises, and legal articles.

Why? Because secondary sources provide a thorough overview of legal topics, meaning you don't have to start your research from scratch. After secondary sources, you can move on to primary sources of law.

For example, while no two legal research projects are the same, the order in which you will want to search different types of sources may look something like this:

  • Secondary sources . If you are researching a new legal principle or an unfamiliar area of the law, the best place to start is secondary sources, including law journals, practice guides , legal encyclopedias, and treatises. They are a good jumping-off point for legal research since they've already done the work for you. As an added bonus, they can save you additional time since they often identify and cite important statutes and seminal cases.
  • Case law . If you have already found some case law in secondary sources, great, you have something to work with. But if not, don't fret. You can still search for relevant case law in a variety of ways, including running a search in a case law research tool.

Once you find a helpful case, you can use it to find others. For example, in Westlaw, most cases contain headnotes that summarize each of the case's important legal issues. These headnotes are also assigned a Key Number based on the topic associated with that legal issue. So, once you find a good case, you can use the headnotes and Key Numbers within it to quickly find more relevant case law.

  • Statutes and regulations . In many instances, secondary sources and case law list the statutes and regulations relevant to your legal issue. But if you haven't found anything yet, you can still search for statutes and regs online like you do with cases.

Once you know which statute or reg is pertinent to your case, pull up the annotated version on Westlaw. Why the annotated version? Because the annotations will include vital information, such as a list of important cases that cite your statute or reg. Sometimes, these cases are even organized by topic — just one more way to find the case law you need to support your legal argument.

Keep in mind, though, that legal research isn't always a linear process. You may start out going from source to source as outlined above and then find yourself needing to go back to secondary sources once you have a better grasp of the legal issue. In other instances, you may even find the answer you are looking for in a source not listed above, like a sample brief filed with the court by another attorney. Ultimately, you need to go where the information takes you.

Step 3: Make sure you are using ‘good’ law

One of the most important steps with every legal research project is to verify that you are using “good" law — meaning a court hasn't invalidated it or struck it down in some way. After all, it probably won't look good to a judge if you cite a case that has been overruled or use a statute deemed unconstitutional. It doesn't necessarily mean you can never cite these sources; you just need to take a closer look before you do.

The simplest way to find out if something is still good law is to use a legal tool known as a citator, which will show you subsequent cases that have cited your source as well as any negative history, including if it has been overruled, reversed, questioned, or merely differentiated.

For instance, if a case, statute, or regulation has any negative history — and therefore may no longer be good law — KeyCite, the citator on Westlaw, will warn you. Specifically, KeyCite will show a flag or icon at the top of the document, along with a little blurb about the negative history. This alert system allows you to quickly know if there may be anything you need to worry about.

Some examples of these flags and icons include:

  • A red flag on a case warns you it is no longer good for at least one point of law, meaning it may have been overruled or reversed on appeal.
  • A yellow flag on a case warns that it has some negative history but is not expressly overruled or reversed, meaning another court may have criticized it or pointed out the holding was limited to a specific fact pattern.
  • A blue-striped flag on a case warns you that it has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court or the U.S. Court of Appeals.
  • The KeyCite Overruling Risk icon on a case warns you that the case may be implicitly undermined because it relies on another case that has been overruled.

Another bonus of using a citator like KeyCite is that it also provides a list of other cases that merely cite your source — it can lead to additional sources you previously didn't know about.

Perseverance is vital when it comes to legal research

Given that legal research is a complex process, it will likely come as no surprise that this guide cannot provide everything you need to know.

There is a reason why there are entire law school courses and countless books focused solely on legal research methodology. In fact, many attorneys will spend their entire careers honing their research skills — and even then, they may not have perfected the process.

So, if you are just beginning, don't get discouraged if you find legal research difficult — almost everyone does at first. With enough time, patience, and dedication, you can master the art of legal research.

Thomson Reuters originally published this article on November 10, 2020.

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Academic Legal Writing

  • Introduction
  • Defining Your Topic
  • Avoiding Preemption
  • Substantive Guidelines
  • Style guidelines

Composition of the Note

The four parts of a note, read the question, know your audience.

There are different kinds of academic legal writing and as in all writing, it is imperative to know your audience and their expectations.  Some examples include:

Seminar Papers and Writing Competitions: Here you are responding to a specific assignment.  Read the assignment very carefully and respond to all of the required elements.  Consult with your professor.  If he or she is willing to review drafts make sure to take advantage of this.

Law Reviews:  Review the submission guideline of law reviews you are interested in.  You may want to read over the works published in that journal and take note of the stylistic similarities.  You will probably want to choose a topic of current interest and focus primarily on analysis

Policy Papers: These may be written at the request of a client or employer and so again it is very important that your work cover all requirements set forth and that it matches the tone appropriate to the sponsor.

Bar Journals: Writing for bar journals can be much less format than other academic writing and you may not be allowed to use footnotes.  You are also more likely to succeed with a topic with that has a more immediately practical application.

The Outline and the First Draft

The outline is critical to your scholarly legal writing. .

In your first round of research, you should have generated an outline.  Use the outline to guide your writing.  The introduction should include your thesis and a roadmap of what the reader can expect to see in the rest of the paper. 

The next part of your outline should include the background context for your topic, possibly including a literature review, a statement of the current law, it's background and enforcement. 

The third part will contain you analysis.  Support your thesis and the arguments that back your thesis with evidence.

Finally, your conclusion should summarize your findings.

You may find that you would like to rearrange your outline as you write.  You may find that you would prefer to organize your paper by type of argument or type of evidence or go from the broadest implications of your analysis to narrowest or vice versa.  You can treat your outline as modular and move things around as seems most persuasive to you.

The First Draft . . . . Second Draft . . .  Third . . .

It is not necessary to write your first draft in order.  You can start anywhere in your outline.  If you like, you can begin by rephrasing the notes you made under each topic in your outline.  It can be easier to start from something- even if it is very unpolished than to compose from scratch.

Use your outline to create descriptive section headings for your draft.  This will keep you organized and help your reader follow your thinking.

After your first draft, you will want to revise multiple times.  It may be difficult to pick a point where the first draft becomes the second which becomes the third but it can be useful to create and save explicitly labeled draft numbers in case you need to go back and to better incorporate outside feedback.

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askus

Legal research and writing

  • Problem analysis

Research plan

  • Legal encyclopedias and digests
  • Legal dictionaries
  • Annotated statutes
  • Articles and papers
  • Law reform commissions
  • Blogs and website secondary sources
  • British Columbia
  • Finding case law
  • Judicial treatment
  • Legal writing
  • Research guides
  • Citation help
  • Indigenous legal research methodology
  • Research management

This page will help you analyze the legal problem you are going to research and help you identify the points your research will need to address.

Below  is a sample research plan template:

  • Research Plan Format Sample (Nayyer) 2018

Planning your legal research

Once you have a handle on what your legal problem is you can plan your research accordingly.

The depth and focus of your plan will likely vary depending on the issues and your familiarity with the subject area.

Start with secondary materials

Start with secondary sources – discussions of the law – to get a grounding on the developed law and an idea of relevant legislation and leading cases on your topic. You'll find detail on secondary sources , including help in finding them, in the next section of this guide.

Legal dictionaries, legal encyclopedias, textbooks, annotated statutes, law reform commission reports, websites and blogs are all examples of secondary materials. Include these steps in your plan:

  • Record the titles and dates of the material you look at
  • Note down any legislation and cases that look relevant
  • Make note of any potential keywords of search terms you come across

Identify relevant primary materials

Legislation is often the first primary source to consider as many legal research problems centre on the interpretation of legislation. Statutes, regulations and by-laws are all examples of legislation. Your research plan should include these steps:

  • Write down the names of any potentially relevant legislation you are already aware of
  • Add other legislation to this list as you conduct your research
  • Update your legislation for currency
  • Research your legislation for judicial interpretation

The other key primary source is case law . Be sure to pay attention to court level and jurisdiction. Your research plan should include these steps:

  • Consider any leading cases you already know about for this issue
  • Add other important cases to this list as you research secondary sources
  • Add any cases you uncover as you note up legislation for judicial treatment
  • Update or research the history of your cases for currency
  • Note up your key cases for judicial treatment
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Library Home

Legal Writing I & II: Legal Research and Writing & Introduction to Litigation Practice

(0 reviews)

Ben Fernandez

Copyright Year: 2020

ISBN 13: 9798746520340

Publisher: Ben Fernandez

Language: English

Formats Available

Conditions of use.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Part I: Objective Writing
  • 1. Sources of Law
  • 2. Legal Research 
  • 3. Briefing Cases
  • 4. Applying Cases and Analogical Reasoning
  • 5. Analyzing Statues and Marshaling Facts
  • 6. Citation
  • 8. Objective Legal Memoranda
  • 9. Other Examples of Legal Writing
  • 10. Improving Your Writing
  • Part II: Persuasive Essay
  • 11. Credibility
  • 13. Ethical Rules for Advocacy
  • 14. Civil and Appellate Procedure
  • 15. Requirements for Civil Motions and Standards for Appeals
  • 16. Persuasive Writing
  • 17. Memoranda in Support of MOtions
  • 18. Motion Session
  • 19. Appellate Briefs
  • 20. Oral Argument
  • Case Briefing Exercise
  • Clampitt v. Spencer
  • Eppler v. Tarmac
  • Sample Case Briefs
  • Clampitt v. Spencer Brief
  • Eppler v. Tarmac Brief
  • Case Analogy Exercise
  • Malczewski v. Florida
  • Sample Case Analogy
  • IRAC Exercise
  • Young v. Kirsch
  • State Farm V. Mosharaf
  • Southland v. Thousand Oaks
  • Sample IRAC
  • Legal Memorandum Exercise 
  • Sample Legal Memorandum
  • About the Author

Ancillary Material

About the book.

Legal Writing I & II; Legal Research and Writing & Introduction to Litigation Practice contains a brief discussion of all of the topics covered in a law school courses on legal writing, including a typical first semester course on legal research, analysis and writing an objective memorandum, as well as a second semester course on persuasion and writing an appellate brief, motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment. The discussion focuses on the basics of analogical reasoning and persuasion and leaves out the minutiae. Each topic is taken one step at a time, with each step building on the step before it. The sources of law are presented first, then legal research, and reading and analyzing cases and statutes. The book covers analogizing a case to a fact pattern and marshaling the relevant facts to the elements of a statutory rule next. And then first section of the book concludes with legal citation, CRAC and CREAC, and writing a legal research memorandum. The text also includes a lot of samples and examples of how the author would write a case brief, a legal memoranda and an appellate brief, as well as an appendix with charts, outlines and exercises students can use to practice these skills. Legal Writing I & II; Legal Research and Writing & Introduction to Litigation Practice covers all the skills students need to know to work at a law firm, and everything students have to learn to begin practicing in litigation department of a firm.

About the Contributors

Ben Fernandez,  University of Florida Levin College of Law

Contribute to this Page

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Legal Writing Tip: Create a Nonlinear Outline

research outline in legal writing

Last month, we discussed the first stage of preparing a legal brief, that is, the period of research and note-taking, of jotting down ideas and points as they come without concern for their strength or order, i.e., letting the “madman” run free, and allowing time for thoughts to percolate.

The second stage of pre-writing is the structural phase, that is, the one governed by the “architect,” who arranges the ideas in a particular order.

Most of us go directly from reading over notes to organizing the concepts in a traditional, or “linear” outline, i.e., placing Roman numerals next to major points, and letters of the alphabet next to subsidiary or supporting points—beneath the Roman numerals and ordered sequentially.

But some experts say using only a linear or hierarchical outline blocks formulation of new and better ideas and prevents identification of helpful, subsidiary points, or the components of major concepts. They say that creating a nonlinear outline first, by “branching” ideas and thoughts out from other ideas and thoughts allows for a more organic process. Preparing a nonlinear outline makes it easier to figure out how best to organize the points in a linear fashion. It allows the “madman” and the “architect” to collaborate, and helps the latter discern the minor from the major issues and see the interconnections. The process results in a stronger structure for the brief, and often leads to discovery of important themes and ideas that would otherwise have remained hidden.

Here’s how Henriette Anne Klauser put it in Writing on Both Sides of the Brain :

When we move sequentially in the world of ideas, we proceed to the next concept under the assumption that we are finished with the idea before it. The fallacy of this method is believing that the concepts we leave behind have been thoroughly thought out and need no extension… Branching, on the other hand, which starts from the center and radiates outward, is an expansive approach to organizing material. By its very nature it allows you to retrace your steps for easy additions and afterthoughts. And often the afterthoughts are the most valuable aspects.

So what does a “branching” outline look like? Legal writing expert Bryan Garner in The Winning Brief (3d Ed.) calls the type he uses, which resembles the main rotor on a helicopter, a “whirlybird.” To begin, draw a circle roughly the size of a quarter in the middle of the page. Then draw four “gently arcing lines” (or “wings”) from the circle to the edge of the page, with each line ending roughly at the midpoint of the top, bottom, and sides of the page.

In the center of the circle, jot down a shorthand name for your brief, like “Smith-stay of proceedings,” or the general subject area, as in Garner’s example: “ADA-Disability.” Write a major point on each of the “wings.” Then list everything you can think of related to the major points on lines (or “feathers”) branching out from the wings.

As you write out a point or topic on a feather, you might think of subsidiary points or topics. List each of those on a line branching out from the feather. Feel free to add wings if you think of other major concepts or elements.

Savannah Blackwell is a former news reporter who covered government and politics for more than a decade, mostly in San Francisco. She became a licensed California attorney in 2010 and specializes in legal research and writing. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @SavannahBinSF.

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For the sake of brevity, at the very least, banish these phrases from your writing

We need to talk about your special interrogatories, the simple elegance of a semicolon.

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Writing a law school research paper or law review note

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Basics of Format & Content

Research papers are not as strictly structured as legal memos, briefs, and other documents that you've learned about in legal writing and drafting courses. For example, there is no prescribed content/format similar to to the Questions Presented, Brief Answers, etc. that you learned for a legal memo.

A general approach to thinking about the content of a research paper is:

  • Introduction in which you give some background and a clear statement of your thesis
  • Status quo -- what is the existing law and why is it a problem
  • Proposals for change

See this blog post by Jonathan Burns , an IU McKinney alum, for more on basic content.

If you're writing for a law review or seminar, you should get formatting instructions regarding things like margins, font size, line spacing. If you don't, or if you're doing an independent study, here are some basic guidelines to follow:

  • Times New Roman or similar, 12 pt font.
  • Double spaced lines.
  • One inch margins all around.
  • Footnotes in academic Bluebook style (use the rules on the main white pages instead of the light blue pages at the front of the Bluebook).
  • Footnotes in same font as text, 10 pt font.
  • Use Roman numerals and/or letters on headings and subheadings or style the fonts so that the difference between headings and subheadings is clear.   
  • Page numbers in the footer, preferably centered, especially on first page. You could do bottom center on first page and then upper right in the header thereafter. Use the header and footer functions for this. If you don't know how to use headers and footers in Word, here is help:  https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/word2016/headers-and-footers/1/ . 

Headings and subheadings

Research papers should have headings and subheadings. These help your reader follow your logic--and a logical structure is very important. Headings and subheadings can also help you keep your thoughts organized. Just don't overuse them--you don't want every paragaph to have a subheading. 

Road map paragraph

Often, research papers will also include a paragraph at the end of the introduction that narrates the road map the paper will follow.   Here is an example of this kind of paragraph:

"The section that follows [this introduction] sets the stage by recounting two scenarios from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, with discussion of the knowledge and implementation of accessibility features in online instructional materials. The next section provides an overview of various impairments and their effects on a user's experience of the online environment. Next is a review of the laws relevant to accessibility with attention to their potential application to online instruction, along with standards used to guide accessibility compliance. The article then explores the concept of universal design and its guiding principles, followed by a discussion of how to use the universal design principles to organize and better understand accessibility standards and practices. The final section briefly summarizes the discussion and encourages law librarians and professors to become knowledgeable and skilled in universal design for online materials to benefit all their students."

Table of Contents

A table of contents can also be helpful, though it's not necessary. If you add a table of contents to your papers, put it right at the beginning, before the introduction. Here's part of the table of contents for the same paper the paragraph above was taken from--it really just lays out the heading and subheadings with page numbers: 

Image of article's table of contents showing heading, subheadings, and page numbers.

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Guides and handouts.

If you need an accessible version of any of the documents below, please contact [email protected] .

Assessing Legal Authority

A Guide to Reading, Interpreting and Applying Statutes A Guide to the Basics of International Law Federal Law, Federal Courts and Binding and Persuasive Authority Which Court is Binding

Bluebook Citation

Differences in Citation in Scholarly and Practitioner Legal Writing Bluebook Signals Explained Citations to International Agreements, Cases and Arbitration Under Bluebook Rule 21 Everything You Wanted to Know that the Bluebook Does Not Tell You Clearly Introduction to Bluebooking: Some Basic But Confusing Rules Parentheticals Bluebook Rule 18: Citation to Internet and Electronic Resources under the Bluebook Some Common and Obscure Bluebook Rules or How to Really Impress Even the Most Exacting Bluebooker

Grammar and Style

Crafting Mid-Level Organization Concise is Nice Ten Rules of Grammar and Usage that You Should Know Guiding Legal Readers Through Your Legal Document Tips for Effective Organization Tips for Effective Punctuation in Legal Writing

International Law

A Guide to the Basics of International Law Citations to International Agreements, Cases and Arbitration Under Bluebook Rule 21

Judicial Writing

The Appellate Court Bench Memorandum In Chambers: Effective Writing Tips for the Judicial Interns and Law Clerks The Trial Court Bench Memorandum

Legal Analysis

Creating Effective Rule Statements A Guide to Reading, Interpreting and Applying Statutes Guiding Legal Readers Through Your Legal Thought How to Craft an Effective Case Comparison Identifying and Understanding Standards of Review Persuasive Writing Using Cases in Legal Analysis Using Secondary Sources and Persuasive Authority What do you Mean What Do You Mean “There’s More than One Way to Do It”? Legal Analysis and the Rhetorical Setting

Legal Research

The Art and Craft of Strategic Legal Research Legal Research Resources at GULC and Beyond A Guide to the Basics of International Law Using Secondary Sources and Persuasive Authority You Have Your Topic, Now Get the Research Done Researching for Administrative Law Internship

Oral Advocacy

May It Please the Court: Oral Arguments in Law School May It Please the Court: Additional Thoughts on Oral Argument

Persuasive Writing

From Memo to Appellate Brief Persuasive Issue Statements Persuasive Writing Writing the Statement of the Case in an Appellate Brief Writing Effective Point Headings Writing for Trials Writing for Trial: The Motions in Limine

Scholarly Writing

Checklist for Scholarly Writing Choosing a Successful Paper Topic Creating a Good Scholarly Paper Developing a Thesis Statement Introductions and Conclusions for Scholarly Papers “Righting” the Write On Competition Strategies for Outlining Your Scholarly Paper The Home Stretch: Revising and Polishing the Scholarly Paper Tips for Getting Your Scholarly Paper Published Turning your First Draft of a Seminar Paper into a Final Draft You Have Your Topic, Now Get the Research Done

Transactional Writing

Tips for Achieving Clarity in Contract Drafting

Writing for Practice

How to Write a Client Advice Letter Emailing Professionally How to Handle an Assignment at your Summer Job In Chambers: Effective Writing Tips for the Judicial Interns and Law Clerks

Writing Checklists, Process, and Tips

Checklist for the Fall Legal Research and Writing Exam Checklist for Scholarly Writing Checklist for the Client Letter or Memo Checklist for the Writing Process Checklist for the First Year Writing Process Crafting Mid-Level Organization Concise is Nice Final Exam Tips Getting the Most Out of Your First Draft Formatting a Legal Document in Microsoft Word Just Do It – Tips for Avoiding Procrastination Outlining Tips and Techniques for Class Outlining for Exams Tips and Techniques for Taking Notes in Class Ten Tips for Transitioning to Legal Writing Tips for Effective Organization Tips for Effective Punctuation in Legal Writing Turning your First Draft of a Seminar Paper into a Final Draft Writer’s Block and How to Work Through It

Writing for Law School Classes

Final Exam Tips Tips and Techniques for Taking Notes in Class Outlining Tips and Techniques for Class Outlining for Exams

Writing Samples and Cover Letters

Building a Writing Portfolio Choosing the Right Writing Sample Government Cover Letters Revising and Preparing a Writing Sample Top 5 Things You Need to Know About Writing Samples Writing a Judicial Clerkship Cover Letter Writing Samples for Public Interest Positions

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Advanced Appellate Advocacy: Creating, Drafting, and Researching a Legal Argument: Planning Your Writing

  • Primary Sources
  • Secondary Sources
  • Dockets and Case Filings

Planning Your Writing

When is your research complete.

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Guides to Legal Research

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Legal Writing Manuals

research outline in legal writing

Practice Tips and Sample Briefs

Lexis Advance

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Basic Legal Research: Home

  • Issue Spotting
  • Jurisdiction
  • The Hierarchy of Authority
  • Making a Research Plan
  • Researching in Print or Online
  • Secondary Sources- Intro
  • Secondary Sources- Encyclopedias, Restatements and ALR
  • Secondary Sources- Treatises, Looseleafs, and Periodicals
  • Updating Your Research
  • Writing Your Document
  • Researching with Lexis
  • Researching with Westlaw
  • Researching with Bloomberg BNA

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Legal Research Outline

  • Introduction to Legal Research: Outline
  • AALL Research Competencies

These two documents are the AALL Research Competencies and a broad outline of the legal research process. (MS Word)

Other Legal Research Guides

The following guides from other law schools may provide further help in understanding legal research and writing.

  • BU 1L Survivor Guide
  • WNE Law School Legal Research and Writing Guide
  • Drake Law School Legal Writing Guide

A Note to Law Students: Why Learning Legal Research is Important

Legal research is part of the 1L legal Methods course but I want to stress that it is important to pay attention to legal research in its own right.  First, the rules of professional responsibility require an attorney to be competent, and legal research is a critical factor of competent law practice.   Also, being a good legal researcher can help you to get a legal job and keep it. Good legal research skills can help you to be competitive in the legal marketplace. 

The best thing you can do to help yourselves in legal research is to carefully read the substantive cases in your class like civil procedure, criminal law and contracts.  Reading cases helps to create a map in your mind that you can use to interpret the law and to find new material to help you solve legal problems. It is like one of those big picture puzzles – the clearer it is the more that you fill it in.  Legal research helps you to find the pieces of the puzzle.  This includes the primary sources of law (cases, statutes, and regulations) as well as secondary sources such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and journal articles. This process of filling in that puzzle will continue throughout your legal career.

My favorite example of how lawyers think and how it impacts legal research is the case of United States v. the Amistad, 40 U.S. 518 (1841), where former President John Quincy Adams successfully argued for the release of African slaves who mutinied against the crew of a slave ship. Yes, he talked about justice and human rights, but he made detailed use of international treaties to support his argument that the Africans should be freed even though slavery was still legal in the United States at the time.  Rather than focus on the abolition of slavery, a hot-button issue in the U.S. at the time, he focused on issues of international law.

But how would Mr. Adams fare if he were doing legal research today?   Fee databases and free search engines make it easy to type in your facts and take the “I'm feeling lucky” route to stave off being overwhelmed by the sheer mass of material.  In the midst of more data than lawyers have ever had access to before the critical question is: will you be able to think of new ways to classify a legal issue?  Will you be able to make new and novel associations between legal concepts?  Will you be able to chart your own course as Mr. Adams did? Or will you depend on machines to do your thinking for you.            

I believe that all of you will be good, competent legal researchers and attorneys. But I also believe that every one of you can be great. Good legal research is one of the foundations to being a great attorney. We look forwarding to serving you in the library. We are happy to help you both in law school and after you graduate.  The law library can help you find a compass to steer by.

Yolanda Jones, Law Library Director

The Library and Librarians

Hello, and welcome to the library! If you're reading this, you're probably about to start your open memo or your appellate brief, and have no idea where to begin researching. This guide will walk you through the steps to find the law to apply to your case, from reading your fact pattern to beginning to write. 

Most of the tutorials in this guide are videos. If you think a written tutorial would be more helpful, or if you have a question you'd like to see answered, email Lorelle Anderson (at right) to request it.

Your reference librarians are Lorelle Anderson, Paul McLaughlin, and Sharron Cunningham. We want to help you, but our help can only extend so far.

  • point you to useful types of resources
  • show you how to use those resources

We CAN'T

  • tell you what sources to use
  • verify that your answer is right
  • point to the screen and tell you where to click

We will be holding research workshops where we'll go through how to use sources in depth. Please sign up and ATTEND these workshops. We don't have the resources to give individual instruction whenever you ask. We like to be helpful, but we have to help all of our other patrons as well.

If you find our tutorials helpful, let us know. Better yet, tell your fellow students. We want all of you to succeed!

Disclaimer and Warning

Disclaimer :

The information and links provided in this guide are  not  intended to provide legal advice.  The FAMU College of Law Library offers no assurance or guarantee the information provided is accurate or current.

Under Florida law, e-mail addresses are public records. If you do not want your e-mail address released in response to a public records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing.

If you want more information, please visit this page .

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Master the Legal Memo Format

September 20, 2022

[Bloomberg Law’s Essential Career Toolkit can help you excel in class and jump-start your legal career to successfully transition from law student to lawyer.]

What is the legal memo assignment?

The legal memo is an objective memorandum that provides you the opportunity to review and research relevant case law, investigate relevant facts using available resources, analyze those facts under that law, and impartially assess the potential outcome of a matter. The legal memo is an assignment that law firm associates are frequently asked to provide to senior attorneys.

Far too often, however, the assigning attorney takes one look at the result and replies, “I knew this already.” To prevent this outcome, it’s important to write a legal memo with sufficient understanding of audience, scope, purpose, and format. With proper planning, law firm associates can maximize the odds of favorable reception at the outset.

Bloomberg Law can help you understand and apply legal issues to your legal memo assignment, so your final product addresses all relevant points right out of the gate.

What’s the difference between a closed legal memo and an open legal memo?

A closed legal memo is an assignment where you are given the case law or other primary law to be used in your writing. Far more challenging is an open legal memo, where you will need to research and identify the relevant law, investigate and analyze the most legally significant facts involving a particular client, and provide a critical assessment of how the court may apply the law to the matter.

By extension, unlike a court brief, the legal memo is not the place to wager a legal opinion or argue facts. The legal memorandum serves as an objective standalone document and identifies the risks and any unknown facts that need investigation. It should maintain an impartial tone, with no implied preference for one side or the other.

What’s the standard legal memo format?

Generally, a legal memorandum comprises six sections, with the following information:

1. Heading or caption

A section, titled, “Memorandum,” identifies the recipient (To: _______), the author (From: ____), the assignment submission date (typically in MMMM DD YYYY format), and subject of the memo (Re: __________).

2. Question presented

A brief one-sentence statement that defines how the law applies to the legal question at hand, and the jurisdiction where the matter will be decided. The question presented is specific and impartial and doesn’t assume a legal conclusion.

3. Brief answer

A quick-hit legal prediction to the question presented, based on a short (four to five sentences) explanation that references relevant law and facts.

4. Statement of facts

A concise, impartial statement of the facts that captures the heart of the legal matter, as well as current and past legal proceedings related to the issue. The facts can be chronological or grouped thematically, whichever format presents the facts in the clearest manner.

5. Discussion

Restates the main facts and delineates the overarching legal rule. Several paragraphs outline the various legal topics to be addressed in the case and provide an analysis of the legal issues, usually ordered in subsections.

6. Conclusion

The assigning attorney will likely read this section first. It predicts how the court will apply the law, and how confident you are in your prediction based on the data. With an impartial advisory tone, you identify next steps and propose a legal strategy to proceed.

How to write a legal memo

Legal research memos can come in many forms—from broad 50-state surveys to more nuanced research on a particular point of law—but whatever the format, it’s important that you fully understand the task entrusted to you before you start typing.

If you tackle your assignment by following the recommended approaches in the legal memo example below, you’ll be more likely to find an appreciative supervising attorney, deliver better work product, cut down on the number of drafts required to arrive at a final product, and, most importantly, please the client.

Learn the essentials of litigation writing, research, and document review with our Core Litigation Skills Practical Guidance Toolkit , available to Bloomberg Law subscribers.

Legal memorandum sample assignment

Assignment:  Prepare an open legal memo on whether, under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, there is personal jurisdiction over a foreign car manufacturer involving a products liability case.

Step 1: Understand the legal issues

Review legal memo assignment materials.

In an open legal memo, you will be tasked with researching relevant primary and secondary resources, such as from national, single, or multiple state entities, as well as appeals circuits, to include in your analysis.

Locate secondary sources

Secondary sources, such as books, treatises, law reviews, legal analysis publications, and Practical Guidance are a great starting point to assist with your legal memo research. Although secondary sources are not binding on courts, meaning courts are not required to follow these sources, they are still helpful tools to use when you know little about a topic.

However, remember that while you may know little about a topic, the same may not hold true for your audience. Readers like law partners and assigning attorneys will already know general law. Identify your audience’s presumed level of knowledge, then the most mission-critical questions to address. These identified gaps will inform your fact-finding and research.

Use secondary resources to better fill in the main legal topics and issues as they relate to the facts in the legal memo assignment. Your legal research should help frame the issue and lead to other relevant materials, including cases and statutes.

Throughout, utilize legal memo space wisely. Remember, legal memo length varies by subject. Some topics require only a short summary, while others compel long-form treatment. For guidance, search your firm’s office document management system for previous legal memos.

Sample assignment – Step 1

Understand the legal issues:  Legal research depends on the right search terms. In the case, for example, you can use the keywords: (“personal jurisdiction” and manufacture!)) to locate relevant resources on the Bloomberg Law platform.

More broadly, while your search into secondary sources may span books and treatises, law review articles, and other legal analysis publications, make sure to vet all legal authorities for relevance.

[Research tip: It can be challenging to know all relevant keywords. Bloomberg Law provides a convenient search results page, where relevant article blurbs showcase additional keywords to explore. Based on targeted keywords, you can better gather the most relevant background information to assist with your analysis.]

Step 2: Develop a research plan

Identify primary law.

Primary sources can often be identified with research tools, such as court opinions searches for relevant case law. However, primary sources are not always apparent. In such cases, work your way backward. Reviewing secondary sources can help you identify a list of relevant primary law resources, like case law and related statutes. Keep your research organized and create a research plan to identify key resources. The research plan will list the relevant primary law and how the case or statute relates to your comprehensive legal analysis.

Stay organized

Save the relevant cases and statutes to a designated workspace. Bloomberg Law provides a streamlined and secure digital working area where you can add your notes as well as upload and store your drafts to keep organized.

Sample assignment – Step 2

Develop a research plan:  In the  assignment, some legal research may mention cases on what contacts a foreign defendant must have for the court to have personal jurisdiction over it, such as Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court .  Read through these articles to reveal additional relevant cases and statutes to support your analysis.

Step 3: Confirm your legal memo research

Once you have your research plan, you want to verify all your research to make sure you’re relying on the most current case law available. Bloomberg Law’s litigation tools like the BCite citator tool help you work smarter and faster to validate your case law research—specifically, to determine whether a citation still represents good law and can be relied upon—and helps you to conduct additional research to find more cases and resources that support your legal memo’s findings and conclusions.

Robust verification should ensure you know the following information:

  • Composite analysis – the overall treatment of the cited case by other courts.
  • Direct history – How a cited case has moved through the court system.
  • Case analysis – Cases that have subsequently cited to the case.
  • Authorities – Cases relied on by the court in the main case.
  • Citing documents – Legal materials, such as court opinions, administrative decisions, and secondary sources that reference your case by citation.

Sample assignment – Step 3

Confirm your research:  To see whether  Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court  is still good law, you will of course need to pull up and review the case status. As part of this verification, you should review how other courts have treated the case. Once you have verified case status, you can better find additional secondary cases and other sources that cite to your case.

[Research tip: Carefully review whether case law citation can be relied on in your legal memo. While a legal memo is written for internal stakeholders like the assigning attorney, and not for the court system, it may nonetheless serve as a primer for future material.]

Attorneys may later incorporate any case law citations within the legal memo into court filings in support of their arguments. Given this broad potential reach, it’s imperative to verify all case law within your legal memo. Any unverified case law that later makes its way into public documents will result in an admonition from the court.

It is also important not to cherry-pick case citations. Remember the legal memo’s purpose is to inform, not to argue the facts. The legal memo must therefore provide an objective summary of all relevant case law and how it applies to the facts at hand. The omission of negative case law only compromises future legal strategy and heightens client legal exposure.

Step 4: Write an objective analysis

The legal memo showcases your critical legal thinking skills. Use your research plan and research materials to help organize your analysis. Remember to clearly state the law and the facts, in the active voice, and present your analysis in a logical manner.

Even with the IRAC legal memo format (Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion), it can be a challenge to write with precision. For example, it may not be clear which details to include in the statement of facts. Skilled legal memo writers often begin with the discussion. With complementary considerations of legal authority and factual criteria, this section clarifies the most legally significant facts and informs other earlier sections like the question presented and brief answer.

Across all stages, Bloomberg Law provides a vast trove of articles and resources to assist you in preparing your legal memo. Whether this is your first or fiftieth legal memo assignment, you can showcase clear and impartial legal analysis in your legal memo and other writing assignments in ways that establish you as a strong legal mind.

Reference Shelf

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University of Virginia School of Law

Graduate Legal Research and Writing I

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Luu, Xinh "Sing" T.

Schedule Information

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Final Type (if any): None

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Prerequisites: LLM Program students only. Concurrencies: None

Exclusive With: None

Laptops Allowed: Yes

First Day Attendance Required: Yes

Course Resources: To be announced.

Graduation Requirements

Satisfies Understanding Bias/Racism/Cross-Cultural Competency requirement: No

Satisfies Writing Requirement: No

Credits For Prof. Skills Requirement: No

Satisfies Professional Ethics: No

Additional Course Information

Schedule No.: 120820105

Modified Type: Lecture

Cross Listed: No

Information reflected on this page was last refreshed at: Wednesday, June 16, 2021 - 10:49 AM *

*During open enrollment periods, live enrollment data may be found in SIS.

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Teaching & Learning

The legal profession in 2024: ai.

Harvard Law School’s David Wilkins says that generative artificial intelligence has the potential to transform the practice of law

Last June, an attorney filed a legal brief he had written with the help of the generative AI platform, ChatGPT. The document included citations to a series of legal cases that seemingly offered precedents that supported his client’s position. There was only one problem. As the judge in the case discovered, six of those cases didn’t exist. Instead, they’d been dreamed up by the online tool. This was only one of several high-profile incidents in which new technology has stymied — and sometimes embarrassed — the lawyers using it (just Google “I am not a cat.”). Yet, many legal experts believe generative AI will also change the legal profession in ways that will aid lawyers and their clients.

To learn more about how AI is expected to transform the legal profession, as well as other important industry trends in the year ahead, Harvard Law Today recently spoke with Professor David Wilkins ’80 , director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. In the first installation of a two-part interview, Wilkins briefly summarizes legal industry trends he will be following this year and outlines both the opportunities and challenges AI will likely present. In part two, Wilkins will discuss a range of other questions, from lawyering in an election year, to salary trends, to the changing work and priorities of general counsels, and what they mean for the future of legal education.

Harvard Law Today: What do you see as some of the biggest trends in the legal profession this year?

David Wilkins: This has really been a very eventful year for the legal profession, with many important changes and potential disruptions, all of which are interrelated. Let me touch briefly on a few. Leading the list, of course, is artificial intelligence. Every other conversation I have is about ChatGPT and how it will impact the practice of law. Those conversations often lead quickly to talking about legal careers and AI’s potential employment effects. The IMF has said that 40% of all jobs in the world could be affected by AI and that it’s mostly going to be felt in the white collar and professional ranks. That clearly has implications for lawyers.

Another important trend is that, according to 2024 NALP data, the majority of associates at law firms are now women, which has led to a whole series of questions about how diversity will be treated in the legal profession moving forward, particularly in light of the fact that a majority of minority law students are female.

There are also discussions around the role of the legal profession in a time of global unrest. For example, what will be the effects of rising geopolitical tensions — the war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East, competition with China — on markets? Two years ago, ESG [environmental, social, and corporate governance] was the global zeitgeist. And while it is still a powerful organizing force in Europe, it has become a highly contentious issue here in the United States. And, of course, we are entering an election year here in the United States. Lawyers are going to have critical roles to play in helping America and the world protect democracy in a time of increasing polarization and conflict.

Last — but here at HLS, certainly not least — we need to think about what all this means for legal education. How can we best prepare students for the new realities of legal careers in the middle decades of the 21st century? And just as important, how will legal education itself be disrupted by technology and other emerging trends?  

“Basic legal information is going to be more and more accessible through technology to more and more people. The problem is that access to basic legal information is just one step in the process of legal services.”

HLT: Let’s start with AI. We’ve seen some high-profile instances of AI gone wrong, when lawyers have used it to write legal briefs, only for the court to discover that the AI made up cases that didn’t exist. What role is AI playing in the legal profession today, where do you see it going in the next year or so, and what checks should we be thinking about putting on its use?

Wilkins: We are just at the very tip of the iceberg in thinking about the implications of AI. When we spoke at this time last year , nobody but perhaps our friends at the Berkman Klein Center had ever heard of generative AI, let alone used ChatGPT. Now, it’s everywhere. In my conversations with lawyers, people started out very skeptical that you could use it for anything useful in the day-to-day work of a practicing lawyer. And now, increasingly, people are more comfortable using it in a wide range of settings.  

AI is also getting much better and hallucinating less [a term experts use to refer to inaccurate information generated by AI]. The industry is moving from non-specialized AI to AI trained on legal materials, designed to tackle specific, complex legal problems. Most lawyers I’ve talked to say that if you ask ChatGPT, let alone a more sophisticated version, to write a memo about a legal question, you will get something approximately as good as what a first-year law firm associate would produce. Of course, a lawyer will still have to review it — just as any good senior lawyer will review the work of their juniors before sending it out into the world — but when you think about the relative cost of AI versus a first-year associate, you can begin to see the transformative potential.

HLT: Can you envision a time when clients in need of legal assistance can turn to AI, instead of lawyers, for help, at least in more routine private law matters like divorces or smaller lawsuits? Maybe the plaintiff’s AI talks to the respondent’s AI and to the judge’s AI and the various AIs sort everything out without the humans needing to get too deeply involved. I’m half joking, but then again, did the horse and buggy manufacturers immediately understand the implications of the automobile?

Wilkins: It sounds very futuristic, except we know that things like this are already happening in all sorts of fields. For example, when I get sick, I go to WebMD to see what I might have and what I might be able to do about it, including questions that I should ask my doctor. There are so many sites now where you could get access to information and generative AI is allowing that information to become more interactive. To answer your question, if the issue is access to basic legal information, that is going to be more and more accessible through technology to more and more people. The problem is that access to basic legal information is just one step in the process of legal services. It is already possible to have an AI that fills out basic legal forms—think LegalZoom. It’s clear that the bar is not going to be able to stop this sort of access. More sophisticated, interactive analysis with an AI lawyer? That may now be on the horizon — and more controversial. One of the key challenges in all of this is going to be that access to the kinds of legal tools that AI can provide are not going to be equally available. When I talk to lawyers in the legal services community, they see the potential for AI to help their clients, but they worry that the most sophisticated tools will be in the hands of the most sophisticated, already well-resourced parties who will be able to leverage that technology to gain even further advantage.

“One of the key challenges in all of this is going to be that access to the kinds of legal tools that AI can provide are not going to be equally available.”

HLT: Doesn’t that asymmetry in access to justice exist today? Some people can hire top law firms to help with their legal problems, but many others can barely get access to any lawyer at all.

Wilkins: Of course, you’re absolutely right that some people and organizations have always had more access to legal services than others. As Marc Galanter wrote in his pathbreaking article  “ Why the ‘haves’ come out ahead ,” published half a century ago this year, “repeat players,” including big corporations, who engage in a lot of litigation are always able to invest in a way that gives them an advantage over smaller “one shot” litigants, by, for example, hiring experienced lawyers and playing for the rules by deciding which cases to appeal or investing in lobbying. In one sense, therefore, technology is just another advantage that the privileged will be able to pay for.

But we also know that technology often produces exponential change in ways that create the potential for magnifying existing inequalities exponentially. Thus, it’s not just that some litigants can hire a better lawyer to draft or analyze a contract than others. In the world of AI, these better resourced parties can deploy a tool that can read every relevant contract in ways that no human could ever do. And yet, it is not a simple one-way street, since we have seen how technology also disrupts the powerful. Take the music business. It used to be that the music business was completely controlled by the big record companies, which decided who got to make music and how you bought it — an album, or later CDs (remember those?!) complete with 16 songs and beautiful cover art. And then technology allowed people to order any one song and put them together in any way they wanted. And the record business has been decimated. Now, there are still big players in the record business who figured out how to make money on the top artists. But it’s a whole different business than it was 25 or 30 years ago because of technology. It’s hard to predict exactly how this is going to play out in the legal business, but you are likely to see both an accentuation of the inequality as people at the top are able to access the best technology and therefore get the best results, and the disruption of existing hierarchies as new players enter the legal marketplace offering new kinds of services, leveraging technology in a way that was not possible before.

HLT: I went to school before the age of personal computing, but I’m sure I must have wondered why I needed to learn math when calculators existed to do that work for me. Do we lose something if we become too highly reliant on technology?

Wilkins: Yes, there’s no question. But here’s the challenge. There are two reductive schools of thought, neither of which can be true. One is that every advanced technology is unequivocally good, and the less repetitive labor that humans have to do, the better. The problem with that is that one day we might end up on Barcaloungers like the people in the movie WALL-E. We also know that there’s a huge amount of valuable development that goes into learning the basics, even if once you learned them, you don’t do these elemental tasks anymore. We now let kids use calculators in school once they’ve learned the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Law firms and lawyers need to ask themselves the same question. If we want well trained, mid-level and senior lawyers, those mid-level and senior lawyers need to do some amount of junior lawyer work so that they understand what it is to do in-the-weeds legal research or to craft and write a well-written brief. But the question is, how much of this type of training is needed? If the point is just memorization or information recall, machines will always do it better. Maybe you need to do at least enough to understand what the information is. But you certainly don’t need to do seven or eight years of it just to be a competent partner or a senior level lawyer.

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  4. Legal Writing Basics: Three Key Skills Sample

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  6. Legal Research and Writing course: Best Practices for Legal Writing

COMMENTS

  1. Legal Research Strategy

    Jurisdiction Legal rules will vary depending on where geographically your legal question will be answered. You must determine the jurisdiction in which your claim will be heard. These resources can help you learn more about jurisdiction and how it is determined: Legal Treatises on Jurisdiction LII Wex Entry on Jurisdiction

  2. LibGuides: Legal Research Basics: Guide outline

    Your first steps in legal research: This section is the first place you should start. It maps out the difference between primary and secondary sources of law. There are also some useful videos on developing key research skills. Legal writing skills: Contains links to useful books and resources on legal writing skills.

  3. PDF OUTLINING YOUR MEMO

    You may choose to outline your entire legal research and writing assignment, or only certain sections. For example, outlining an Analysis/Discussion section may be more helpful than outlining a Statement of Facts. (2) Complete the necessary research on your topic. Once you have completed your research you can begin putting together an outline.

  4. Research Guides: Legal Research Manual: Develop an Outline

    By the end of the research and analysis process, you will have a fully developed outline of your legal argument from which the memorandum may be written. The legal solution to a problem (provided there is one) is determinable by the law as expressed in statutes and cases.

  5. Legal research: 3-step how-to guide

    1. Identifying the legal issue is not so straightforward. Legal research involves interpreting many legal precedents and theories to justify your questions. Finding the right issue takes time and patience. 2. There's too much to research. Attorneys now face a great deal of case law and statutory material.

  6. PDF ORGANIZING A LEGAL DISCUSSION (IRAC, CRAC, ETC.)

    Most legal writing requires the writer to analyze a set of facts using legal rules gleaned from a myriad of sources, including cases, statutes, and secondary materials. ... In the meantime, below is a basic outline of the IRAC format and its best uses. Issue State the issue in the first paragraph at the beginning of the sub-section: what is the ...

  7. LibGuides: Academic Legal Writing: Substantive Guidelines

    The Outline is critical to your scholarly legal writing. In your first round of research, you should have generated an outline. Use the outline to guide your writing. The introduction should include your thesis and a roadmap of what the reader can expect to see in the rest of the paper. The next part of your outline should include the ...

  8. 11 Tips for Persuasive Legal Writing (With Examples)

    Good legal writing requires researching and incorporating relevant legal precedents into your documents. Before you start writing, thoroughly read any material provided to better understand the legal issues. Every case and document is different, but keeping some basic rules for legal research in mind will set you up for success.

  9. PDF An Introduction to Legal Research

    Step #1: Legal Research Process 7 Secondary Sources: Sources of information that describe or interpret the law, such as legal treatises, law review articles, and other scholarly legal writings, cited by lawyers to persuade a court to reach a particular decision in a case, but which the court is not obligated to follow.

  10. How to Outline a Complex Legal Research Memo

    Share At some point in law school, you'll be asked to draft a complex legal memo whether for a class, a clinic, a job, or an internship. This involves extensive research, digesting all the information, developing analysis, crafting arguments, and giving your recommendations.

  11. LibGuides: Legal research and writing: Research plan

    Legal research and writing Research plan This page will help you analyze the legal problem you are going to research and help you identify the points your research will need to address. Below is a sample research plan template: Research Plan Format Sample (Nayyer) 2018 Planning your legal research

  12. Legal Writing I & II: Legal Research and Writing & Introduction to

    1. Sources of Law 2. Legal Research 3. Briefing Cases 4. Applying Cases and Analogical Reasoning 5. Analyzing Statues and Marshaling Facts 6. Citation 7. IRAC 8. Objective Legal Memoranda 9. Other Examples of Legal Writing 10. Improving Your Writing Part II: Persuasive Essay

  13. Legal Writing Tip: Create a Nonlinear Outline

    To begin, draw a circle roughly the size of a quarter in the middle of the page. Then draw four "gently arcing lines" (or "wings") from the circle to the edge of the page, with each line ending roughly at the midpoint of the top, bottom, and sides of the page. In the center of the circle, jot down a shorthand name for your brief, like ...

  14. PDF Legal Research Legal Writing and Legal Analysis

    LEGAL RESEARCH, LEGAL WRITING, AND LEGAL ANALYSIS: PUTTING LAW SCHOOL INTO PRACTICE Suzanne E. Rowe* a When I began law school, I thought my goal was to master—and memorize—every case, statute, and rule I would need to practice law. I would put all this knowledge into a magic briefcase. Then when a client came to see me with

  15. Writing a law school research paper or law review note

    Writing a law school research paper or law review note Home Format Books and articles Basics of Format & Content Research papers are not as strictly structured as legal memos, briefs, and other documents that you've learned about in legal writing and drafting courses.

  16. Guides and Handouts

    Creating Effective Rule Statements. A Guide to Reading, Interpreting and Applying Statutes. Guiding Legal Readers Through Your Legal Thought. How to Craft an Effective Case Comparison. Identifying and Understanding Standards of Review. Persuasive Writing. Using Cases in Legal Analysis. Using Secondary Sources and Persuasive Authority.

  17. Planning Your Writing

    Writing and Analysis in the Law by Helene S. Shapo; Marilyn Walter A standard-setter in American legal education, Writing and Analysis in the Law provides a guide to legal writing, focusing on the importance of clear organization in written and oral communications. Developed as a textbook for a first-year law school course, the book introduces law students to the principles of research ...

  18. Research Paper Outline

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  19. Basic Legal Research: Home

    These two documents are the AALL Research Competencies and a broad outline of the legal research process. (MS Word) Other Legal Research Guides. The following guides from other law schools may provide further help in understanding legal research and writing. BU 1L Survivor Guide. WNE Law School Legal Research and Writing Guide.

  20. Resources for MLS Students: Legal Research & Writing

    Skills & Values: Lawyering Process, Legal Writing and Advocacy consists of 14 chapters that provide students with an introduction to the key aspects of the lawyering process, from understanding what lawyers do, to research, writing, citation, writing style, drafting, persuasion, and oral arguments.

  21. Master the Legal Memo Format

    Step 4: Write an objective analysis. The legal memo showcases your critical legal thinking skills. Use your research plan and research materials to help organize your analysis. Remember to clearly state the law and the facts, in the active voice, and present your analysis in a logical manner.

  22. Graduate Legal Research and Writing I

    The required skills course for LL.M. candidates unfamiliar with the U.S. common law system, Graduate Legal Research & Writing (I) offers guidance for class preparation, research and writing. Students will gain intellectual skills necessary for LL.M. coursework, meeting the upper-level writing requirement, and future professional endeavors. The course covers fundamentals of U.S. legal research ...

  23. PDF Strategies for Essay Writing

    Strategy #3: Create a reverse outline from your draft While you may have learned to outline a paper before writing a draft, this step is often difficult because our ideas develop as we write. In some cases, it can be more helpful to write a draft in which you get all of your ideas out and then do a "reverse outline" of

  24. Legal Research and Writing

    Summary of the facts, arguments, and court's decision. b. Critique of existing academic works on the same topic. c. Detailed analysis of the court's legal reasoning. d. Overview of the legal issue and personal opinions. Answers. Legal Research and Writing (GPR100) 13 days ago.

  25. The legal profession in 2024: AI

    Last June, an attorney filed a legal brief he had written with the help of the generative AI platform, ChatGPT. The document included citations to a series of legal cases that seemingly offered precedents that supported his client's position. There was only one problem. As the judge in the case discovered, six of those cases didn't exist.

  26. LegalEdge Law School on Instagram: "Hello law family To start writing

    19 likes, 0 comments - legaledgelawschool on February 9, 2024: "Hello law family To start writing your first paper as a beginner, first, pick a topic you find..." LegalEdge Law School on Instagram: "Hello law family To start writing your first paper as a beginner, first, pick a topic you find interesting and that fits the assignment.