The Simple Guide To Legal Research

Legal research is a key component of many of the assessments you will undertake in law school, particularly in later years. If you decide to study honours or go on to a master’s degree, you will also likely be faced with writing a research thesis – the ultimate test for your legal research abilities. Legal research will also be important if you decide to work in the legal profession as a clerk or law graduate. 

This Simple guide to legal research sets out tips for using legal research databases, advice for how to find and make use of the information you are looking for, and how to manage documents once you have found them.

Key Points

1.   Always start with broad and general secondary sources

2.   Springboard to the specifics

3.   Search directly for particular primary or secondary sources

Finding the Information

Thankfully, legal research no longer involves going to the library to trawl through volumes of Commonwealth Law Reports or thick, dusty textbooks. 

Almost everything that you might hope to find is now available online – and universities make access to this information easy by giving you access to a huge range of legal databases. However, sometimes the sheer volume of sources available can stop you form researching efficiently, and can lead you down rabbit holes of irrelevant or misleading material. 

Here is a guide for finding your way.

Step 1 – Start General

If you are researching a topic of law you know little about, always start with broad, general secondary sources. 

Your university’s research subscriptions give you access to an incomprehensible amount of legal information, most of which is the result of other people’s hard work in reading, summarising and scrutinising the law. Why let their hard work go to waste? 

Begin by looking at the most generalist sources – I particularly recommend Halsbury’s Laws of Australia on LexisNexis AU or The Laws of Australia on Westlaw AU. These sources give an accurate and usually current summary of most areas of law. While they are not usually too complex or in-depth, they will give you a balanced overview of the law, and give you a starting point for the research task you are faced with. 

I would advise against deep-diving straight into primary sources (legislation or cases), because this will too often lead you down a rabbit hole of nuanced and complex legal issues surrounding the topic, before you have had a chance to familiarise yourself with the big picture.  

Step 2 – Springboard to the specifics

Once you have found the basics on Halsbury’s, you are ready to get specific. Use the relevant cases, sections in legislation, and textbook chapters which are listed in Haslbury’s as a springboard to your next “round” of research. 

Try doing the following: 

• Where a case is cited as the preeminent authority for a proposition, it is usually useful and relevant to your research. Read it using our Guide to Reading Cases.

  Also, it is useful to begin with the most recent case cited. There is a good chance the most recent case on the issue will cite and summarise the most important parts of earlier judgments. Use this as a time-saver. 

• For each case you find useful, always run the “Note Up” function on Lexis Nexis to look for any secondary sources which may provide you with further useful commentary.

• Where legislation is cited, after reading and understanding it, visit that particular section of the legislation on LexisNexis and use the “Note Up” function. This will present you with all secondary sources on their database which refer to that section of legislation. This is also worth trying on Austlii.

Step 3 – Finding Cases, Legislation and Commentary Directly

Once you have narrowed down the wide topic, you can search directly for particular primary or secondary sources. Many people start by doing this, and find themselves lost in specific information. You know better, and will use this step to add depth to your general understanding of the basics. 

If you are looking to deep-dive into finding specific commentary  and other secondary sources, I recommend the following sources:

• Your University’s “Library” search function – I found that the generic “Library” search function to be one of the best resources. It usually conducts a search of all of the databases available to it and provides you with a quick snapshot of what is available under your university’s subscriptions. Often, I would find articles from sources I would never have thought to use directly. Note not all universities may have this type of function available.

• LexisNexis – the clean layout makes this a good tool for finding commentary as well as primary sources. Before you start searching by topic, click here for advice on how to use connectors.. Connectors are extremely useful and will be a game-changer to finding the right results (especially the “within number of words” function).

• Westlaw – Same deal as LexisNexis, just with a slightly more complex layout. You are likely to find similar results.

For cases, I would recommend the following:

• LexisNexis – to me, this platform has the best search function and layout for browsing results. Search by either citation or case name and you should not have much trouble finding what you are after. You can also use the “download” link to download PDF versions of cases.

• Westlaw – if you are after the official scan of reported cases (CLR, FLR, etc), use this platform. Search by citation, as the name search function does not always work. Just be careful not to make a typo because Westlaw is not forgiving.

• Austlii – many people prefer browsing cases on Austlii. I find the search function and reading pane to be clunky, but it may work for you. Note that all of the cases available on Austlii are from unreported sources.

• ICLR – for cases from the UK, I would go straight to ICLR. It is like the Westlaw of the UK, and allows you to download reported versions.

For legislation, I recommend the following:

• The official Commonwealth/State or Territory website – if you know the title of the legislation, download a version directly from the source. Make sure you go through the full website to get the pdf (do not click on the “pdf” link directly from Google, as this may be an outdated version). Also note that government websites are sometimes slow to incorporate recent amendments to legislation. If that’s the case, you can download the amending bill and read them side-by-side.

• Austlii – this platform allows you to view legislation by listing each section individually. It is useful if you only need to refer to specific sections (and not the legislation as a whole). Again, I find it a bit clunky.

• ICLR – for legislation from the UK, go straight to ICLR.

The boring part

Let’s finish this sectionoff with a few sensible words about the nature of your sources. 

To stay on the right side of the “rules” of research and academic integrity, also make sure you keep in mind the following four guiding principles when researching:

1. Authority – you should ensure that the materials you are using come from a reputable source and author. For example, I would hesitate before using articles from a student law review as their take on the law may be incomplete or incorrect. 

2. Accuracy – while this may not always be easy to determine (after all, if you are researching a topic, then you probably do not know the answer), you should do all you can to cross-check and verify the information found in secondary sources.

3. Currency – ensuring that the information you are reviewing is still valid is essential. For example, if an article written 5 years ago is reviewing a piece of legislation, you should take time to ensure the legislation has not changed or been superseded.

4. Comprehensiveness – if you have some background on your research topic, you will usually be able to tell whether a source covers it comprehensively.

Before we finish, I thought it may be useful to also discuss managing research documents.