Research Strategies and Organization

Throughout this study, the goal has been to learn about available legal resources and especially how to use them effectively in researching the law. The exercises and research project have given me hands on experience with the legal research process. The basic process presented by Rowe is the same as the one I followed for my research into lemon law, and are as follows:

1) Generate a list of search terms

2) Check secondary sources and practice aids (in my project, this was done as part of the preliminary analysis)

3) Find the relevant (or controlling, as Rowe says) constitutional provisions, statutes, or administrative rules

4) Find related cases using case digests or online databases

5) Read the cases

6) Update with a citator like Shepard's

7) Stop researching when there are no gaps left in your research and you begin to retrieve repeated results

Rowe notes, of course, that this can be modified for different research projects or goals. Althought it appears quite simple and straightforward, my research project let me experience firsthand how quickly messy, unwieldy, overwhelming, and even frustrating the process can be. Determining what level of focus is necessary for your situation and evaluating which parts of your research results are relevant are not simple or straightforward tasks and additionally can be time-consuming, especially if an honest effort is made to be thorough.

Rowe also points out - and I agree with her - that neither is the process as linear as a listing of steps might otherwise suggest. Often as you move through the research, results that seemed potentially useful reveal themselves as irrelevant, while new discoveries require going back to earlier steps. For instance, your research may lead you to generate new search terms than in turn require you to return to and repeat an earlier stage in the process for those terms.

This all points to the incredible importance of taking ongoing notes of your research steps and keeping those results organized. Rowe suggests beginning by writing out a strategic list of all the resources you intend to consult and then maintaining a process trail list of each step taken. This both ensures that you cover all potential research grounds while avoiding duplication - a very likely possibility without documenting the history of what you have done. She also recommends writing a one-page summary for each secondary source consulted, and keeping an ongoing list of any primary authority citations you encounter throughout your research. She notes that while you should cross out any citiations that end up not being useful, you should not delete them - again, so that you do not duplicate efforts.

Rowe has many other ideas for organizing your research results and how to take notes on statutes and cases and presents a common legal analysis chart format that can be used to record your results known as IRAC (issue, rule, application, conclusion). These are all useful tools; the bottom line is that, no matter how you track and record your research process and then organize your results, it is crucial that you do so. It is otherwise impossible to make sense of all the potential avenues and results, and there is simply too many of each to try to work from memory, even in part. In addition, note-taking and organizing results hugely facilitate whatever final presentation of results is needed; for an attorney, this could be advice to a client, a memorandum, a brief, etc. Well-documented and organized research turns easily into well-expressed and organized communication of the results.