Canadian Legal Research Manual

Contents: Preface -- 1. Common object of legal research -- 2. Critical angles in legal research -- 3. Empirical legal research -- 4. Fundamental research -- 5. Humans in law's grammar -- 6. Explorative research -- 7. Epilogue: Horizons of legal research -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index.

This book offers a step-by-step guide to doing a systematic literature review in legal scholarship. It first discusses what a systematic literature review is and why it is so important. It then moves consecutively through the process of delineating your topic and determining what information to search for, designing and carrying out a systematic search for relevant literature, critically appraising the literature, and synthesizing, discussing and presenting your findings.

The first part deals with general matters such as meaning, evolution, and scope of legal research; systematization of thinking process; objectivity and ethics in legal research; and building a theme through an appropriate research plan. The second part engages with various ways through which doctrinal legal research can be conducted. This includes doctrinal, analytical, historical, comparative, and philosophical methods of conducting legal research. Part Three unravels discussion on non-doctrinal legal research by highlighting empirical, qualitative, and quantitative methods of legal research. It also catalogues the tools employed for non-doctrinal legal research and explains the method of using them. Part four takes to the fields where combination of doctrinal and non-doctrinal legal research can be attempted. Multi-method legal research, policy research,action research, and feminist legal research occupy this field. The final part reflects over the steps involved in research-based critical legal writing, as distinct from client-related or norm-creating legal writing.

Explaining some of the main methodological approaches to legal research, this book is written by specialists in their fields, researching in a variety of jurisdictions. It covers a range of topics, including including feminist approaches, economic analysis of the law, socio-legal studies,legal history, and comparative law.