2.1.7 Nature and Scope of Legal Research

Nature:• It is source-bound: legal research lives on primary sources — constitutions, statutes, regulations, precedents, treaties.• It is argumentative: its product is not a statistic but a reasoned position.• It can be doctrinal (library, texts, logic) or empirical/non-doctrinal (field, people, data) or both.• It is prescriptive as well as descriptive: legal research not only describes the rule but evaluates what the rule ought to be.Scope:• Interpretation and analysis of legislation, precedent and doctrine• Law reform studies and pre-legislative scrutiny• Evaluation of implementation (e.g., has the Domestic Violence Act 2066 protected victims in practice?)• Comparative and international legal studies• Legal history and jurisprudence• Court administration, delay-reduction and access-to-justice studies• Empirical socio-legal studies (crime, legal awareness, legal aid)