2.4 Doctrinal Research Approach

The approach (the law-faculty default): the library research into the primary legalsources — the statutes, the precedents, the doctrine — answering the question "what is thelaw?" on a defined issue. The method's steps: the issue's statement → the sources' retrieval (the statute, the case-law, the commentary) → the analysis (the rules' synthesis, the ratios' extraction, the conflicts' reconciliation) → the conclusion (the law's statement, the gaps' note). Thedata:secondary in its raw material but primary in its authority — the law's own texts (Unit 5.3's authorities' ladder). The strengths: the precision, the normative authority, the feasibility (the desk, the database); the practice's alignment (the advice-and-brief are doctrinal products). The limits: the law-in-action's absence (the rule without the street — Pound's gap), the value- blindness (the "is" without the "ought"), the circularity risk (the doctrine citing the doctrine). Theexam's phrasing: doctrinal research = analytical + historical + comparative as its toolkit, applied to the law's statement.