Planning, Research And Construction Of A Legal Essay

Running Head : PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGAL ESSAY

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NAME

INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION

DATE

PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGAL ESSAY

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DESCRIBE THE STAGES OF PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A

LEGAL ESSAY

In law school, writing of legal essays is a fundamental part of learning which proves challenging

to most students. In some cases, students are required to write well researched papers addressing

different legal topics. Since the law is constantly changing, it is not always easy to deliver good

essays if one is not up to date with the changes. This means that legal essays need to be well

planned and researched and coherently argued in order to come up with an excellent paper. This

paper is going to address the important steps that should guide law students in writing good

essays as well as providing important knowledge and skills required in interpreting legal

questions and well-structured responses. Therefore, it is important to learn that it is equally

important to give attention to the content, structure and construction of a legal essay in order to

produce a good piece of writing.

1. Selecting a topic

The first step towards writing any form of law essay is selecting a topic. When selecting a topic,

one has to ensure that it is interesting and has enough information to write about depending on

the requirement of the essay

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. Before deciding on what topic is the best to write about, there are a

few factors to consider ensuring that it is appropriate. One should start by examining the legal

developments of the issue that need to be discussed. This is because legal information keeps on

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DuBay, C. (2014). Specialized Legal Research Courses: The Next Generation of AdvancedLegal Research. Legal Reference

Services Quarterly, 33(3), pp.203-225

PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGAL ESSAY

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getting updated and its earlier information could have changed. It is also important to search for

a legal issue where the UK court lawyers have split in understanding and interpretation of the

law. It is also essential to have a look at the most recent scholarly publications as well as being

up to date with the current news and affairs. This can greatly help in coming up with a newer and

better topic ideas. At other instances, the topic might have already been provided by the

instructor or one may need to choose from a few selected ones

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. Choosing the right topic for your

assignment brings the required focus of the question asked by presenting the essential knowledge

and skills of the topic areas. Additionally, teachers instructions also help in understanding what

you are required to do with your skills and knowledge by applying them to the question you are

expected to answer.

2. Conducting research for the topic

Once a topic has been selected, the next step is to conduct a thorough research about it. This

includes a literature review and identification of the sources to be used. The importance of this is

to find the most relevant information and available materials about the chosen topic. Literature

review information is also useful in evaluation of how useful is the source in the context of the

topic. These sources can be primary or secondary obtain from libraries, online, electronically and

also module notes obtained from the lecturers.

The chosen sources of information should have four main characteristics which include;

i) Accurate - A source that is accurate has detailed and factual information that can be used

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DuBay, C. (2014). Specialized Legal Research Courses: The Next Generation of Advanced Legal Research. Legal Reference

Services Quarterly, 33(3), pp.203-225.

PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGAL ESSAY

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comprehensively for the topic. It must also be up to date to ensure that it has all the current

information has been included. Ii) The credibility of a source is determined by if it has the

authors’ credentials and if the information given is evidence based. It is important to use credible

sources to ensure that the information obtained is trustworthy. Iii) Used sources should also be

reasonable. In this case, one should ensure that the information given has an objective in relation

to the research question. This ensures that the source discusses the topic in details and reasonably

and its concerned with just the truth. Iii) Supportive- A good source should not only have valid

information but should also have support from other sources. This ensures that it always gives

convincing evidence for the information it provides.

Since not everyone is able to understand the legal topic immediately, it is important for

the writer to find relevant existing legal texts from law text books as a starting point . This will

help in providing an analytical framework as well as provide discussion for the legislation and

other leading case briefs for example Cases and materials on criminal law written by Dine. These

textbooks are usually written by professors and academics to be used by law students. For

example, Smith & Hogans criminal Law; practitioners’ books which resemble other law

reference books. Law reference text books can be found in print form in SOAS university and

COPAC libraries in London. Law text books can also be obtained from online data bases and in

form of e books such as Cambridge e book and Ebrary.

Information about the chosen topic can also be obtained from legal encyclopedias such as

Encyclopedia of United Kingdom and European Patent law and Westlaw Uk insight

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. It is easy

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Baranich MM, “HeinOnline Takes a Diversified Approach to Legal Research Training” (2010) 10 Legal Information

Management 12.

PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGAL ESSAY

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to get information from them because the cases are alphabetically arranged and legal terms and

phrases are also interpreted. The definition of each case is also followed by summaries of court

decisions and the interpretation which makes them easy to obtain legal information from them.

Another secondary source that can be useful in the research is the legal digest. It provides

unopposed sources of case materials with over 500000 different cases in different times. It is so

much valued as it contains a summary of the entire case law of England and wales.

General Law journals and articles could also provide important legal information. These sources

can be obtained as a print media from SOAS library website and Inform 25

(http://www.inform25.ac.uk/Link/). If they are not available in print form, they can be accessed

electronically from their databases such as Lexis Library, Westlaw Uk

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.

More research is then carried out using primary sources such as making consultations with

authority representatives such as regional and federal reporters, states constitution and statutes.

In United Kingdom Case laws can also be found in case law reports. Examples of case law

reports in UK include; Law reports, All England Law reports and weekly reports which are all

available in the SOAS library databases (http://www.soas.ac.uk/library/resources/a-z/)

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.

3. Note taking and evaluation

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Lexis Library: University Library, [ONLINE]< https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/cdfiles/halslaws> Date accessed { 11

th

Feb

2018}.

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SOAS University of London: Electronic books and Texts.,[ONLINE] <https://www.soas.ac.uk/library/resources/ebooks/> Date

Accessed, {11

th

Feb 2018}.

PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGAL ESSAY

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At this stage, the topic has already been identified, literature review and sources selected.

Note taking is important in ensuring that one does not leave out important points and ideas that

one may come across when conducting literature survey. In legal essays, people might need to

decide whether they are going to use direct quotations or not. This can be noted when one is sure

to use it in the later stages of the work to ensure that it is not forgotten. In this stage, evaluation is

also conducted to ensure that the sources and the bibliographies to be used are relevant. After a

bibliography has been made, one may choose not to use all the sources

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. This ensures that the

sources being used are worth and in line with the purpose of research topic. For example, a

source may have the required information but it was published more than ten years ago.

Evaluation of the materials should ensure that the current works of an author are looked into.

Evaluation also ensures that the source to be used is well understood in the country’s legal

system.

4. Brainstorming your ideas and planning on your answer

After the student has completed taking notes and evaluating the sources, the next step is to

brainstorm ideas and plan on how to answer the question. This is important because one has to

write the information in a given order so that it can be easily understood by the reader. This also

includes which point the essay will focus on and which ones are less significant. Since all

information has been obtained from different sources, it is important for the writer to put together

all the ideas together as well as include personal opinions to ensure that the topic question has

been well answered.

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Lannon JM, The writing process: a concise rhetoric, reader, and handbook (Pearson Education 2012)

PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGAL ESSAY

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One may need to write a draft of the paper or a skeleton outline. In this stage, the writer is

trying to identify the best arrangement of ideas and the best structure to answer the question. An

outline also helps in dividing the paper into a number of reasonable sections depending on the

required length of the paper. This ensures that all the ideas and important sections are not left out

during the actual writing. A draft can then be written so as to help the writers identify areas that

they could experience difficulties, need more research or need to be expanded. The draft is

written to ensure that one will not have struggles when writing the final paper. When the draft is

complete, the writer should ensure that he/she goes through it again to identify any errors and

ensure that all important ideas have been written down before they proceed to writing the actual

paper

5. Introduction, body and conclusion of the paper.

This marks the start of writing down the final paper that is to be submitted to the

instructor which is divided in three main parts. A good introduction has four main elements. .

It gives back ground information about what the paper is going to discuss about. It must also

have a thesis statement. This is referred to the main arguments that will be discussed. Finally,

it gives the reader an outline of the structure of the research paper. It also answers the topic

question which can signify the reader what the conclusion of the paper is going to be. It is

therefore important to make the purpose of your essay clear from the introduction part of

your essay. Just after the introduction, the writer should also make sure that the legal issue or

the topic has been accurately defined. In order to identify and determine case laws, it is

necessary to consider and examine the facts, circumstances and events surrounding the case

law. In the definition of the legal issues, all the relevant parties should be identified. The

location, chronological order of events that took place and the objects that were involved

PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGAL ESSAY

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should also be considered. This will be important in knowing how the case should be handled

and who was on the wrong and how things went wrong

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.

After the introduction, the body paragraphs follow. In this section, the context and the

analysis of the legal situation is discussed. The writer needs to demonstrate that they clearly

understand the given topic by clearly presenting their arguments. The arguments should also

be able to persuade the reader on alternative position of the legal issue. This is important as it

creates a chance for the reader to understand things from your point of view. They also

indicate that you have been able to look into the challenged aspect of the legal issue or

situation and you are able to come up with a logical position in that argument. This section

encourages students to use different structures as they put across their ideas and select one

that support your topic analysis.

The final part of a legal essay is the conclusion. It shows the opinion of the writer of how

the discussed issue can be resolved. This gives the last opportunity for the writer to explain to

the reader what the objective of writing the paper was and how it was accomplished throughout

the essay. Therefore, the conclusion should revisit the research topic and a brief summary given

on how the question was answered throughout the essay. From the above discussion we learn

how important it is to balance both the quality and the structure of an essay in order to have good

outcomes. The writer needs to have a good plan and a well outlined structure in order to write a

good essay. When the essay is well researched, planned and well written, the results are always

amazing. Therefore it is important to use quality information, plan and organize our essays well

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DuBay, C. (2014). Specialized Legal Research Courses: The Next Generation of Advanced Legal Research. Legal Reference

Services Quarterly, 33(3), pp.203-225.

PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGAL ESSAY

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and follow the instructor’s instructions to ensure all the stages of writing a good legal essay are

met.

PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGAL ESSAY

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baranich MM, “HeinOnline Takes a Diversified Approach to Legal Research Training” (2010)

10 Legal Information Management 12

DuBay, C. (2014). Specialized Legal Research Courses: The Next Generation of Advanced

Legal Research. Legal Reference Services Quarterly, 33(3), pp.203-225.

Lannon JM, The writing process: a concise rhetoric, reader, and handbook (Pearson Education

2012

Lannon, J. (2012). The writing process. Boston: Pearson Education.)

Lexis Library: University Library, [ONLINE]<

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/cdfiles/halslaws> Date accessed { 11

th

Feb 2018}.

Naylor B and Saunders B, “Whose Rights?” (2010) 32 Alternative Sydney Law Review 438,442

SOAS University of London: Electronic books and Texts.,[ONLINE]

<https://www.soas.ac.uk/library/resources/ebooks/> Date Accessed, {11

th

Feb 2018}.

PLANNING, RESEARCH AND CONSTRUCTION OF A LEGAL ESSAY

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Planning, research and construction of a legal essay

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