Legal Research Basics : Creating a Research Plan

Start with what you have* and actually read it.

The type of resource that you start with -- case, law review article, regulation, statute -- will influence your research plan.  Generally, you can formulate a research plan by reading what you already have and using it to:

• Gather concepts and vocabulary.
• Analyze it for its relationship to other resources.
• Find its sources.
• Find sources that cite to it.
• Understand its history.
• Determine what its possible future might be.
• Find commentary on your resource.

* if you have nothing, go to a secondary source (law review article, book, treatise, nutshell, ALR) on a subject you are interested in and read it.

• Read at least one resource on your topic.
• Analyze the information you read.
• Identify relevant vocabulary and concepts.
• Determine the area of law related to your topic (statutory, common law, regulatory, state, federal).
• Identify print resources that you may want to search before going to the electronic;
• annotated statutes
• caselaw digests
• ALRs
• encyclopedias.
• Formulate effective search strategies using the vocabulary and concepts you have identified.
• Identify electronic databases that may contain the relevant primary or secondary sources you need;
• HeinOnline (older resources, law reviews, international legal resources, etc.);
• Westlaw or LexisNexis;
• Non-legal (background, public opinion);
• ProQuest Congressional (U.S. government documents and legislative history);
• Current Index to Legal Periodicals (CILP);
• BNA collection (subject specific legal current events and news)
• UT Law Library Collection of Databases
• Formulate effective search queries for electronic searching using the vocabulary and concepts you have identified.
• Perform your search.
• Evaluate your results.
• Repeat until you keep getting the same relevant results over and over again from multiple sources.

Update each primary source electronically using KeyCite or Shepards to make sure your case or statute is still good law.

Evaluate each resource to establish the proper amount of focus you want to give it in your writing.

• Is it the right jurisdiction?
• Is it current or outdated?
• Is it very broad with just a mention of your topic?
• How often has the resource been cited too?
• Is the author well-known? An expert?
• Where was it originally published?  A prestigious journal or little known internet blog...
• If it is an online resource, is it authentic? Reliable? Accurate?

Stop when you keep retrieving the same relevant resources and when those resources begin to repeat the same citations and quote the same authorities in footnotes, etc.  (Warning: make sure you have pulled all of these cited-to works and authorities and either added them to your list of resources or rejected them for some reason.)