Legal Research Methodology

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Description
The goal of legal education is not confined to producing legal practitioners but extends to equipping the students of law with the best possible tools, knowledge and critical thinking to serve society as social engineers. The study of law is inextricably linked with legal research. Legal research plays a crucial role in the development of law as a discipline and in the growth of the legal profession. The key objectives of legal research are to train students of law in analytical and critical thinking and enable them to acquire high standards of professional competence. Further, legal research facilitates the enrichment of the legal profession by rewarding and incentivising specialisation in emerging areas of law and in studying these fields with an interdisciplinary lens, using inputs from the various sciences and social science. This provides the solid basis on which legal policies can be formulated to benefit and rebuild society into a more robust, just and fair version of itself. Therefore, to enhance the efficiency of the legal system and to make legal education more meaningful in our present society, the curricula for students pursuing graduate and postgraduate courses in law are designed to incorporate research projects. This task is an indispensable requirement that marries theory with practice, as it guides, trains and encourages the law student to analyse both legal doctrines as well as the real-world impact of law in society. This enables students to have a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the impact of law on society. Therefore, after taking into account the requirements of legal scholars at all levels of academia, the authors have penned this book, Legal Research Methodology, to provide law students with theoretical and practical exposure to methods of legal research and to best serve their academic needs.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Legal Research-Nature and Scope
3. Patterns of Legal Enquiry Process and Present Trends in Legal Research
4. Legal Reasoning-A Distinctive Character
5. Legal Research and Law Reform
6. Doctrinal and Non-doctrinal Legal Research
7. Socio-legal Research
8. Research Problem: Identification, Selection and Formulation
9. Review of Literature
10. Research Objectives and Hypothesis
11. Research Design
12. Data Collection in Legal Research
13. Data Collection Techniques
14. Sampling Method
15. Data Processing, Analysis and Interpretation
16. Report Writing
17. Law Library and Legal Research
18. Jurimetrics
Bibliography
Subject Index
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Author Details
PROF. (DR) J. MAHALAKSHMI : Professor and Head, Department of Labour Law and Administrative Law, School of Excellence in Law The Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University, Chennai
DR P. BALAMURUGAN : Associate Professor Head I/C, Department of Taxation Law School of Excellence in Law The Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University, Chennai