Teaching Legal Research and Legal Writing
Chapter Thirty-Five
Syllabus topic 2, "Methods of Teaching - Merits and demerits"
Pages 128 to 130 of 543
In one line
Legal research and legal writing are skills, not knowledge, and they are the only skills a law course must teach because every other part of the course assumes them, yet they are the ones most often left to be picked up.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: the teaching of legal research and legal writing consists of instruction in locating primary and secondary sources, verifying that a provision is in force and a case is good law, reading a statute and a judgment analytically, and producing written work with proper citation and structure; it is taught by graded practical exercises rather than by exposition, and its assessment is the exercise itself, which is why it is the clearest case in the syllabus of a method and an assessment being inseparable.
Why it is a method question and not a subject
Because it cannot be taught by telling. A student who has been told how to find a case has not found one. The method is necessarily a graded sequence of exercises, each done and corrected.
Because everything else depends on it. A project cannot be written by a student who cannot research. A moot memorial cannot be prepared. A dissertation cannot be attempted. And a practising lawyer who cannot check whether a judgment is still good law is dangerous.
And because it is the method with the largest gap between its importance and its treatment. It is assumed rather than taught in most Indian law courses, and students arrive at the Semester IV dissertation having never been shown how to do any of it.
What has to be taught, in order
First, what the sources are. Statutes, subordinate legislation, judgments, treaties and official reports as primary sources; commentaries, journals, digests and textbooks as secondary. Chapters 920 and 930 teach this properly.
Second, how to reach them. India Code, the Gazette, court websites and the free databases. Chapter 940 does a worked search.
Third, how to check. Whether an Act is amended, whether a section is in force, whether a case has been overruled. Chapter 950 teaches tracing a case, and this is the step most often skipped.
Fourth, how to read. A statute is read differently from a judgment, and a judgment is read for its ratio.
Fifth, how to write. Structure, argument, and the discipline of saying only what the source supports.
Sixth, how to cite. MU requires APA with footnotes for the LL.M. dissertation, and legal citation forms exist alongside it. Chapter 1360 sets both out.
Seventh, how not to plagiarise. Chapter 1380, with the UGC regulations.
The methods used to teach it
Graded exercises are the core. Find this section. Find the case that decided this point. Show that this provision is in force. Read this judgment and state its ratio in forty words. Each is short, each is markable, and each fails visibly.
Teaching Legal Research and Legal Writing
Worked demonstration. The teacher does a search in front of the class, including the wrong turns, because a search that works first time teaches nothing about searching.
Correction of the student's own writing, which is the tutorial method of chapter 260 applied to a skill.
And the project method of chapter 270, which is where the pieces are put together.
Merits
It transfers to everything. No other single component of the course improves as many other components.
It is the most durable thing a course can give. The substantive law a student learns will be amended; the ability to find out what the law now is will not.
It is directly assessable. Every exercise has a right answer or a defensible one, so the method and the assessment are the same object.
It is nearly free where a database and a library exist, and increasingly free even where they do not, because the primary sources are online.
And it is what makes the rest of this paper usable. A student who can research can do the dissertation MU sets in Semester IV; a student who cannot has to guess.
Demerits
It is time-expensive in correction. Twenty short exercises for a hundred students is two thousand pieces of marking, and where the staffing is not there the exercises are set and not marked, which teaches nothing.
It needs access. A college without a library or database subscription can teach the free sources but cannot teach the paid ones, and students who go into practice will meet the paid ones.
It is invisible in the syllabus. In most Indian law courses no paper is called legal research, so nobody owns it, and what nobody owns is not taught.
Students undervalue it until they meet a dissertation, because it carries few marks and looks like a preliminary.
And it dates. Databases change their interfaces, sources move, and the specific instructions of two years ago are wrong. India Code's own move to a new platform is a live example: routes that worked before now return nothing.
A worked example
One exercise, five minutes to set, and it teaches more than a lecture on research.
The exercise. Find the provision under which the Bar Council of India lays down standards of legal education. State its exact number. Then find out whether the rules made under it have been amended, and when.
What a student has to do. Identify that the Act is the Advocates Act 1961; locate it on India Code; find section 7 and read to clause (h); then find the Bar Council of India Rules Part IV; then discover that a first amendment was notified by circular in 2016.
Teaching Legal Research and Legal Writing
What goes wrong, usefully. Most students will find a summary of section 7 on a website and stop. The correction is the teaching: a summary is not the source, and the exercise required the provision.
And the second half is the harder half. Finding that the Rules exist is easy; finding that they have been amended requires knowing that subordinate legislation is amended by circular and notified on a website, which is exactly the check chapter 950 is about.
Marking takes a minute per student and the class has learned the difference between a source and an account of one, which is the foundation of both remaining modules of this paper.
Quick revision
Legal research and writing is a skill, so it is taught by graded exercises, worked demonstration and correction of the student's own writing, not by exposition.
Seven things to teach, in order: what the sources are; how to reach them; how to check whether they are current; how to read a statute and a judgment; how to write; how to cite; and how not to plagiarise.
Merits: transfers to every other component; is the most durable thing the course gives; is directly assessable; is nearly free; and is what makes MU's Semester IV dissertation possible.
Demerits: expensive to correct; needs access to sources; is owned by no paper in most syllabuses; is undervalued by students until they meet a dissertation; and its specifics date quickly.
Test yourself
1. Why can legal research not be taught by exposition? Because it is a skill rather than a body of knowledge. A student who has been told how to find a case has not found one, so the method must be a graded sequence of exercises, each performed and corrected.
2. List, in order, what has to be taught. What the primary and secondary sources are; how to reach them; how to check that a provision is in force and a case is still good law; how to read a statute and a judgment; how to write; how to cite; and how not to plagiarise.
3. Give the demerit that best explains why it is neglected in Indian law courses. That no paper in most syllabuses is called legal research, so nobody owns it. What nobody owns is not timetabled, not marked and therefore not taught.
4. What is the single most durable thing this method gives a student? The ability to find out what the law now is. The substantive law learned in a degree will be amended; the capacity to check the current position will not.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.