ABSTRACT
A PATIENCE AND PERSPECTIVE 5
B A BASIC APPROACH TO LEGAL RESEARCH 6
Step 1: Formulate your legal questions 7
Step 2: Categorise your research questions 9
Step 3: Find appropriate background resources 9
Step 4: Look for statutes 9
Step 5: Look for cases 10
Step 6: Check the case citators 10
Step 7: Update your legal research 10
C FIVE TIME-SAVING RESEARCH TIPS 11
1 Check the layout of the law library 11
2 Take careful notes 11
3 Collect your materials in advance 11
4 Find a good law dictionary 12
5 Use the card or computer index 12
D ALWAYS KNOW WHEN YOU HAVE FINISHED 13
Chapter 2
This chapter has two purposes: to give you some basic rules for efficient use of the law library and a basic legal research approach which will be useful for virtually any legal task. Once you understand how this overall approach works, any research task will be greatly simplified. Although some of what is said is fairly conventional (for example, keep accurate notes), much of it isn’t.
