- About This Guide
- Video on Choosing a Topic
- Tools on Westlaw, Lexis and Bloomberg
- Circuit Splits
- Blogs
- Research Methodologies
- Additional Methodology Resources
- Conducting a Literature Review
- Beginning Research
- Writing Style Guides
- Citation Guides
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About This Page
Choosing a topic can be one of the most challenging aspects of writing an extensive paper. This page has resources to help you find topics and inspiration, before you get started on the in-depth research process.
Related Guides
Ask a Librarian
Need Help?
Ask a librarian:
Monday - Friday: 9am-5pm
Related Guides
Ask a Librarian
Need Help?
Ask a librarian:
Monday - Friday: 9am-5pm
Related Guides
Ask a Librarian
Need Help?
Ask a librarian:
Monday - Friday: 9am-5pm
Related Guides
Ask a Librarian
Need Help?
Ask a librarian:
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About This Guide
This guide contains resources to help students researching and writing a legal dissertation or other upper-level writing project. Some of the resources in this guide are directed at researching and writing in general, not specifically on legal topics, but the strategies and tips can still be applied.
The Law Library maintains a number of other guides on related skills and topics that may be of interest:
The Wells Library also maintains guides. A few that may be helpful for managing research can be found here:
Choosing a Topic
Video on Choosing a Topic
This video discusses tips and strategies for choosing a dissertation topic.
Note: this video is not specific to legal dissertation topics, but it may still be of interest as an overview generally.
Tools on Westlaw, Lexis and Bloomberg
Bloomberg
The Bloomberg/BNA publication United States Law Week can be a helpful resource for tracking down the major legal stories of the day. Log into Bloomberg Law, in the big search box, start typing United States Law Week and the title will appear in the drop down menu beneath the box. This publication provides coverage of top legal news stories, and in-depth "insight" features.
If you have a general idea of the area of law you wish to write about, check out the Practice Centers on Bloomberg. From the homepage, click the Browse link in the top left-hand corner. Then select Practice Centers and look for your area of law. Practice Centers are helpful because they gather cases, statutes, administrative proceedings, news, and more on the selected legal area.
Bloomberg has other news sources available as well. From the homepage, click the Browse link in the top left-hand corner. Then select News and Analysis, then select News or Analysis, and browse the available topics.
Lexis
If you know what area of law you'd like to write about, you may find the Browse Topics feature in Lexis Advance helpful for narrowing down your topic.
Log into Lexis Advance, click the Browse Topics tab, and select a topic. If you don't see your topic listed, try using the provided search bar to see whether your topic is categorized as a sub-topic within this list.
Once you click on a topic, a box pops up with several options. If you click on Get Topic Document, you'll see results listed in a number of categories, including Cases, Legislation, and more. The News and Legal News categories at the right end of the list may help you identify current developments of interest for your note. Don't forget about the filtering options on the left that will allow you to search within your results, narrow your jurisdiction, and more.
Westlaw
Similar to Lexis Advance, Westlaw Edge has a Topics tab that may be helpful if you know what area of law you'd like to write about.
Log onto Westlaw Edge, and click on the Topics tab. This time, you won't be able to search within this list, so if you're area is not listed, you should either run a regular search from the main search bar at the top or try out some of the topics listed under this tab - once you click on a topic, you can search within its contents.
What is great about the Topics in Westlaw Edge is the Practitioner Insights page you access by clicking on a topic. This is an information portal that allows you quick access to cases, legislation, top news, and more on your selected topic.
Circuit Splits
In United States federal courts, a circuit split occurs whenever two or more circuit courts of appeals issue conflicting rulings on the same legal question. Circuit splits are ripe for legal analysis and commentary because they present a situation in which federal law is being applied in different ways in different parts of the country, even if the underlying litigants themselves are otherwise similarly situated. The Supreme Court also frequently accepts cases on appeal that involve these types of conflicted rulings from various sister circuits.
To find a circuit split on a topic of interest to you, try searching on Lexis and Westlaw using this method:
in the search box, enter the following: (circuit or court w/s split) AND [insert terms or phrases to narrow the search]
You can also browse for circuit splits on Bloomberg. On the Bloomberg homepage, in the "Law School Success" box, Circuit Splits Charts appear listed under Secondary Sources.
Other sources for circuit splits are American Law Reports (ALR) and American Jurisprudence (AmJur). These publications provide summaries of the law, point out circuit splits, and provide references for further research.
Blogs
"Blawgs" or law-related blogs are often written by scholars or practitioners in the legal field. Ordinarily covering current events and developments in law, these posts can provide inspiration for note topics. To help you find blawgs on a specific topic, consider perusing the ABA's Blawg Directory or Justia's Blawg Search.
Research Methodology
Research Methodologies
Types of Research Methodologies
There are different types of research methodologies. Methodology refers to the strategy employed in conducting research. The following methodologies are some of the most commonly used in legal and social science research.
Doctrinal
Doctrinal legal research methodology, also called "black letter" methodology, focuses on the letter of the law rather than the law in action. Using this method, a researcher composes a descriptive and detailed analysis of legal rules found in primary sources (cases, statutes, or regulations). The purpose of this method is to gather, organize, and describe the law; provide commentary on the sources used; then, identify and describe the underlying theme or system and how each source of law is connected.
Doctrinal methodology is good for areas of law that are largely black letter law, such as contract or property law. Under this approach, the researcher conducts a critical, qualitative analysis of legal materials to support a hypothesis. The researcher must identify specific legal rules, then discuss the legal meaning of the rule, its underlying principles, and decision-making under the rule (whether cases interpreting the rule fit together in a coherent system or not). The researcher must also identify ambiguities and criticisms of the law, and offer solutions. Sources of data in doctrinal research include the rule itself, cases generated under the rule, legislative history where applicable, and commentaries and literature on the rule.
This approach is beneficial by providing a solid structure for crafting a thesis, organizing the paper, and enabling a thorough definition and explanation of the rule. The drawbacks of this approach are that it may be too formalistic, and may lead to oversimplifying the legal doctrine.
Comparative
Comparative legal research methodology involves critical analysis of different bodies of law to examine how the outcome of a legal issue could be different under each set of laws. Comparisons could be made between different jurisdictions, such as comparing analysis of a legal issue under American law and the laws of another country, or researchers may conduct historical comparisons.
When using a comparative approach be sure to define the reasons for choosing this approach, and identify the benefits of comparing laws from different jurisdictions or time periods, such as finding common ground or determining best practices and solutions. The comparative method can be used by a researcher to better understand their home jurisdiction by analyzing how other jurisdictions handle the same issue. This method can also be used as a critical analytical tool to distinguish particular features of a law. The drawback of this method is that it can be difficult to find material from other jurisdictions. Also, researchers should be sure that the comparisons are relevant to the thesis and not just used for description.
Empirical
This type of research uses data analysis to study legal systems. A detailed guide on empirical methods can be found here. The process of empirical research involves four steps: design the project, collect and code the data, analyze the data, determine best method of presenting the results. The first step, designing the project, is when researchers define their hypothesis and concepts in concrete terms that can be observed. Next, researchers must collect and code the data by determining the possible sources of information and available collection methods, and then putting the data into a format that can be analyzed. When researchers analyze the data, they are comparing the data to their hypothesis. If the overlap between the two is significant, then their hypothesis is confirmed, but if there is little to no overlap, then their hypothesis is incorrect. Analysis involves summarizing the data and drawing inferences. There are two types of statistical inference in empirical research, descriptive and causal. Descriptive inference is close to summary, but the researcher uses the known data from the sample to draw conclusions about the whole population. Causal inference is the difference between two descriptive inferences.
Two main types of empirical legal research are qualitative and quantitative.
Quantitative, or numerical, empirical legal research involves taking information about cases and courts, translating that information into numbers, and then analyzing those numbers with statistical tools.
Qualitative, or non-numerical, empirical legal research involves extracting information from the text of court documents, then interpreting and organizing the text into categories, and using that information to identify patterns.
Drafting The Methodology Section
This is the part of your paper that describes the research methodology, or methodologies if you used more than one. This section will contain a detailed description of how the research was conducted and why it was conducted in that way. First, draft an outline of what you must include in this section and gather the information needed.
Generally, a methodology section will contain the following:
- Statement of research objectives
- Reasons for the research methodology used
- Description and rationale of the data collection tools, sampling techniques, and data sources used, including a description of how the data collection tools were administered
- Discussion of the limitations
- Discussion of the data analysis tools used
Be sure that you have clearly defined the reasoning behind the chosen methodology and sources.
