Legal Research Strategy

This guide will walk a beginning researcher though the legal research process step-by-step.  These materials are a review of and supplement to the 1L Legal Research & Writing course, but these resources will also assist upper level students engaged in any legal research project.

Legal research must be comprehensive and precise.  One contrary source that you miss may invalidate other sources you plan to rely on.  Sticking to a strategy will save you time, ensure completeness, and improve your work product. 

Follow These Steps

Running Time: 3 minutes, 13 seconds.

Make sure that you don't miss any steps by using our:

If you get stuck at any time during the process, check this out:

A legal question often originates in the form of a problem or a story about a series of events.  In law school, these appear as fact patterns.  In practice, this may come in the form of an assignment from a manager or an interview with a potential client.  Start by doing the following:

• Read anything you have been given
• Analyze the facts and frame the legal issues
• Assess what you know and need to learn
• Note the jurisdiction and any primary law you have been given
• Generate potential search terms

Legal rules will vary depending on where geographically your legal question will be answered.  Thus it is essential that you determine the jurisdiction in which your claim will be heard.  These resources can help you learn more about jurisdiction and how it is determined:

This map indicates which states are in each federal appellate circuit:

Once you are ready to begin your research, you will need to keep track of your work.  Logging your research will ensure that you do not miss sources and can explain your research strategy, which you may be asked to do.  Researchers can keep logs on paper, in folders on Westlaw or Lexis, or in another online citation management platform.

Many researchers create their own tracking charts.  Be sure to include:

• Search Date
• Topics/Keywords/Search Strategy
• Citation to Relevant Source Found
• Save Locations
• Follow Up Needed

Consider using the following research log as a starting place: 

Both Westlaw and Lexis offer an option to save materials you find to folders that you create.

Some platforms such as Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, or Refworks might be useful if you are working on a long term project that will require a lot of research.  These are good tools to keep your research well organized.  Please note, however, that none of these platforms are not a substitute for doing your own proper Bluebook citations.  Learn more about citation management software on our other research guides:

There are three different types of sources: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary.  When doing legal research you will be using mostly primary and secondary sources.  We will explore these different types of sources in the sections below.

Secondary sources often explain legal principles more thoroughly than a single case or statute, so using them can help you save time.

Secondary sources are particularly useful for:

• Learning the basics of a particular area of law
• Understanding key terms of art in an area
• Identifying essential cases and statutes

When considering which type of secondary source is right for you the following three considerations are particularly important:

• Scope/Breadth
• Depth of Treatment
• Currentness/Reliability

For a deep dive into secondary sources visit:

Legal Dictionaries

Legal dictionaries are similar to other dictionaries that you are likely familiar with, and have used in the past.

Legal Encyclopedias

Legal encyclopedias contain brief, broad summaries of legal topics, providing introductions and explaining terms of art. They also provide citations to primary law and relevant major law review articles.  

Here are the two major national encyclopedias:

Treatises are books on legal topics.  These books are a good place to begin your research.  They provide explanation, analysis, and citations to the most relevant primary sources. Treatises range from single subject overviews to deep treatments of broad subject areas.

It is important to check the date when the treatise was published, as many are either not updated, or are updated through the release of newer editions.

To find a relevant treatise explore:

American Law Reports (ALR) contains in-depth articles on narrow topics of the law. ALR articles, called annotations, provide background, analysis, and citations to relevant cases, statutes, law review articles, and other annotations.  If there is an ALR article on point, this can be one of the best tools for quickly finding primary law on a narrow legal question.

This resource is available in both Westlaw and Lexis:

Law reviews are scholarly publications, usually edited by law students in conjunction with faculty members. They contain both lengthy articles and shorter essays by professors and lawyers, as well as comments, notes, or developments in the law written by students. Law review articles often focus on new or emerging areas of law and may offer critical commentary. Some law reviews are dedicated to a particular topic and will include in their contents the proceedings of panels and symposia on timely legal issues.

To find law review articles visit:

Restatements are highly regarded distillations of common law, prepared by the American Law Institute (ALI), a prestigious organization comprising judges, professors, and lawyers. The ALI distills the "black letter law" from cases to indicate trends in common law, and occasionally to recommend what a rule of law should be. They restate existing common law into a series of principles or rules.

Restatements are not primary law. However, they are considered persuasive authority by many courts. 

Restatements are organized into chapters, titles, and sections.  Sections contain a concisely stated rule of law, comments to clarify the rule, hypothetical examples, explanation of purpose, as well as exceptions to the rule.  

To access restatements visit:

Primary authority is authority that issues directly from a law-making body.  Sources of primary authority include:

• Constitutions
• Statutes 
• Regulations
• Case Law

Access to primary legal sources is available through:

Statutes (also called legislation) are laws enacted by legislative bodies, such as Congress and state legislatures. 

We typically start primary law research here.  If there is a controlling statute, cases we look for later will be interpreting that law.  Also, you can find cases related to the statutory section that interests you quickly and easily, if you use an annotated statute.

Annotated codes are a great place to start your research. They combine statutory language with citations to related materials like cases, regulations, secondary sources, and cross references to other statutes.  Unannotated Codes provide only the text of the statute without editorial additions.  Unannotated codes, however, are more often considered official and used for citation purposes.

For a deep dive on federal and state statutes, visit:

Want to learn more about the history or legislative intent of a law?  Learn how to get started here:

Regulations are rules made by executive departments and agencies. Not every legal question will require you to search regulations, but many areas of law are affected by regulations, so make sure not to skip this step in the research process if they are relevant to your question.

To learn more about working with regulations, visit:

In many areas of law, particularly those that rely heavily on common law principles, finding relevant caselaw will comprise a significant part of your research.

Running Time: 3 minutes, 10 seconds.

Up to 88% of federal case opinions are unpublished. It is important to know whether your jurisdiction will consider these unpublished cases as persuasive authority. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure have an overarching rule, Rule 32.1 and each circuit has its own local rules regarding citations to unpublished opinions. You must be familiar both with the Federal Rule and with the rule in your jurisdiction.

Headnotes

A citator is "a catalogued list of cases, statutes, and other legal sources showing the subsequent history and current precedential value of those sources.  Citators allow researchers to verify the authority of a precedent and to find additional sources relating to a given subject." Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019).

Each major legal database has its own citator, the two most popular are Keycite on Westlaw and Shepard's on Lexis.

This video answers common questions about citators:

For step-by-step instructions on how to use Keycite and Shepard's see the following:

Citators serve three purposes: (1) case validation, (2) better understanding, and (3) additional research.

Is my case or statute good law?

Look for:

• Parallel citations
• Prior and subsequent history
• Negative treatment suggesting you should no longer cite to holding.

Has the law in this area changed?

Look for:

• Later cases on the same point of law
• Positive treatment, explaining or expanding the law.
• Negative Treatment, narrowing or distinguishing the law.

Who is citing and writing about my case or statute?

Look for:

• Secondary sources that discuss your case or statute.
• Cases in other jurisdictions that discuss your case or statute.

For more guidance on when to stop your research see:

Several automated services exist that can be used to check your work and ensure that you are not missing important resources. Learn more about automated brief check services.  Keep in mind, however, that these services are not a replacement for conducting your own diligent research.

  Ask Us! Submit a question or search our knowledge base.

Chat with us! Chat  with a librarian.

Email: research@law.harvard.edu

 Contact Historical & Special Collections at specialc@law.harvard.edu

 Meet with Us  Schedule an online consult with a Librarian

Hours  Library Hours

Classes View Training Calendar or Request an Insta-Class

 Text Ask a Librarian, 617-702-2728

This guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

You may reproduce any part of it for noncommercial purposes as long as credit is included and it is shared in the same manner.