Researching the law can be a complicated task. One complication is understanding the law. Another complication is finding the right law. You could dive into a list of statutes and start reading until you find a law that applies. But that can be hard. You might not find all the laws, you might not find the right laws, and it might be hard to understand the language of the law. Laws are often written so they are hard to understand.
The basic way to research law is a two step process:
While this guide presents a very simple explanation of legal research, you can find a more detailed guide at Legal Research for Beginners.
Free legal sources are out there. There are a lot of free ways to get laws and cases. And Wikipedia has articles about many subjects, including legal topics.
The quality of the sources that you find matters though. Sometimes what you find may be out of date and not talking about what the law is now. Often you will find a free source that talks about the area of law that you want, but it does not go into enough detail. And you have to be able to trust what you are finding is good information.
You will want to find sources that are
Free Secondary Sources are hard to find that meet all those requirements. But free primary sources (for instance, laws) are often provided online by the government.
Secondary Sources talk about the law. They are not the actual law. So a book, magazine, or website that explains what the law is would be a Secondary Source. It is usually best to start research with Secondary Sources.
Some types of Secondary Sources include
Many of these are available on the internet for free.
Primary Sources are the actual law. While by the end of your legal research, you will want to have found some Primary Sources, it is hard to start good research by diving into Primary Sources.
Why not start with directly searching for laws? Because there may be laws in many different places and forms. Having so many sources of laws can be confusing, and the Secondary Sources may be able to help you find the right law.
If you do have to start research with a Primary Source, court opinions are better to start with because if you find one on point, it may directly reference other laws you may then investigate.
Some types of Primary Sources include:
Most of these Primary Sources are available online for free through the government or other reliable websites.
