Legal Research

Abbreviations 11
Introduction 13

1 General questions and definitions 19
1 What is legal research? 21
2 Who conducts legal research? 22
3 What types of legal research are there? 23
4 Is law a science? 25
5 What is doctrinal legal research? 28
6 What is meta-legal research? 32
7 What is empirical legal research? 34
8 What is normative research? 36
9 Wat is interdisciplinary legal research? 38
10 What is meant by knowledge valorisation? 40
11 What role do originality and creativity play within legal research? 42
12 Do lawyers get research subsidies and grants? 43
13 What does it take to obtain a doctorate in the field of law? 45

2 Research questions and research plan 47
14 How do I start a legal research project? 49
15 What does a research plan contain and what is a research design? 50
16 How do I find a research subject? 51
17 What do I need to consider when choosing a subject? 52
18 What types of research questions are there? 53
19 What are the conditions for a good research question? 55
20 What is the difference between a question of law and a research question? 56
21 Wat are subquestions? 57
22 What do the terms ‘concept’ and ‘conceptualise’ mean? 58
23 What does operationalising mean? 60
24 What is meant by the term ‘data’? 61
25 What does a time schedule contain? 62
26 What is a provisional table of contents? 63

3 Theory 65
27 What does theory mean in terms of legal research? 67
28 What is a doctrinal legal theory (or a doctrine)? 69
29 What are micro-level, Grand and middle-range theories? 72
30 What is a normative theory? 74

4 Methods and methodology 77
31 What do the terms ‘method’ and ‘methodology’ mean? 79
32 What is the difference between quantitative and qualitative research? 80
33 How do I choose a method? 82
34 What is meant by validity (internal and external)? 84
35 Must a research report contain a justification of the methodology applied? 85

5 Searching and deciding on sources 87
36 How do I collect data? 89
37 What is the difference between a primary and a secondary source? 90
38 Where do I find treaties and laws? 91
39 Where do I find case law? 92
40 Where and how do I find literature? 93
41 How do I select the best sources? 95
42 What is a systematic literature study? 96
43 Where do I find meta-legal and empirical legal sources? 97
44 Can I find all sources online? 99
45 May I use Wikipedia as a source? 99

6 Doctrinal legal research 101
46 What is the difference between a judge and a legal scholar? 103
47 What are typical doctrinal legal research questions? 104
48 What methods are commonly used in doctrinal legal research? 105
49 How do I solve a legal problem? 107
50 Why and how do I analyse the parliamentary history of a law? 108
51 What are interpretation methods? 108
52 What role do argumentation theory and logic play in legal research? 110
53 What is a normative framework, and what is a yardstick or criterion? 112
54 What are human rights approaches to research? 113

7 Analysis of case law 115
55 What is case law analysis? 117
56 What is an annotation? 118
57 What case law is published online? 119
58 How do I recognise when a judgement cites another judgement? 119
59 What is quantitative case law analysis? 121
60 How can network analysis play a role in case law research? 122

8 Meta-legal research 125
61 What is philosophy of law research? 127
62 What is law and economics research? 128
63 What is legal sociology research? 130
64 What is legal history research? 132
65 What is law and information technology research? 133

9 Empirical legal research 135
66 What does ‘empirical’ mean? 137
67 What role does statistics play in legal research? 137
68 What is a variable, and what types of variables are there? 140
69 What role do surveys play within research? 142
70 What is observation research? 144
71 How do I use interviews in legal research? 145
72 What is a focus group or expert meeting? 147
73 What is the empirical normative method? 148

10 Comparative law 149
74 What is comparative law? 151
75 What is internal comparative law? 153
76 What are the different phases in external comparative law research? 154
77 What is meant by micro and macro comparative law? 156
78 How do I choose what to compare, and what countries should I compare? 157
79 What is dogmatic comparative law? 158
80 What is the functional method of comparative law? 160
81 What role do language skills play in comparative law research? 162
82 What is a tertium comparationis? 163
83 How do I describe the foreign law that is found? 164
84 How do I describe the differences and similarities? 165
85 How can I explain differences and similarities? 166
86 How do I assess the differences and similarities found? 167

11 Putting the research on paper 169
87 How do I start to write? How do I prevent a writer’s block? 171
88 How is a research report usually structured? 172
89 What do a section and a paragraph contain? 174
90 How do I write correctly and attractively? 174
91 Why should I refer to earlier research and sources? 175
92 What is the difference between paraphrasing and citing? 177
93 How do I refer to sources? 177

12 Publication 179
94 What types of legal publications are there? 181
95 How do I select a journal for my article? 182
96 What is peer review, and how do I respond to a review? 183
97 What is open access publishing? 185

13 Research ethics and plagiarism 187
98 What is research ethics? 189
99 What is plagiarism? 191
100 How do I deal correctly with research data? 191

Literature 193