The incumbent is required to perform work that includes conducting investigations related to legislation and legal issues relevant to the activity of the department/department. Tasks include the preparation of legal documents and the development and maintenance of an inventory of legal documents. Depending on the assignment, the incumbent may be required to perform the entire spectrum or some of the tasks listed. – Review your research. Don`t rely solely on one or two sources. For example, if you`re searching online using fact-based keywords, check the results by browsing relevant printed legal report indexes to make sure important issues and cases haven`t been overlooked. – There is no magic for good legal research. There is no one way to do this effectively. The key is simply to know the sources so that you can use them to retrieve the relevant law effectively and efficiently. The determination of “relevant” case law takes place in practice.
We cannot always get to the heart of each case, but we must at least try to find the leads and precedents. 1. The law comes from a variety of sources. When a lawyer pleads a case, some of these sources are more authoritative than others, which means they carry more weight and the court is more likely to rely on them. In order of priority, they are: the Constitution (the supreme law), statutes (acts of Parliament), customary law (case law) and legal textbooks. 4. Textbooks are not binding in court per se, unless they are textbooks written by practitioners. These books are very detailed and show the application of legal principles using the common law. Otherwise, regular law textbooks are the last resort. – The legal research process is not an orderly process.
The sources used in which order depend on the knowledge of the field and the area of law concerned by the factual situation. REPORTING TO THE HEAD OF THE LEGAL SERVICES DIVISION or other designated official. As with other skills in a legal framework, this comes with practical practice and experience, but there are some basic things you should know – research means exactly that. To increase your chances of success, you should use a combination of different research tools and strategies whenever you tackle a legal research problem. There is no such thing as “perfect research”. Online legal research is all about finding a balance between memorizing each relevant case and refining your search to exclude all irrelevant cases. Start your search by finding a core of relevant cases and building on from there. Spend time planning your search before going online, including alternative words and abbreviations (i.e. searching for different endings of the same “word root”) and using the appropriate connectors. Perform a series of searches and search multiple databases. Check your results by refining or broadening the search and searching for both facts and legal terms.
– The legal solution of a problem (if any) is determinable by law, as expressed in laws and cases. The most effective way to search for them is often to use print and electronic sources, including journal articles, textbooks, and encyclopedias, to identify relevant laws and cases. – Don`t forget to allow enough time. Secondary sources should be used to define legal issues, gain an understanding of the law, and find relevant citations. It is extremely important to allow enough time to analyze the primary materials against the facts and write your conclusions clearly and concisely. This is completely understandable if you are confused at this point, but the most experienced lawyers will tell you that no school, no matter how small, could have taught them what they have learned in practice. This also applies to you; The best way to learn how to do legal research is to actually do it. Also, keep in mind that the purpose of this course is to prepare to become a legal secretary, not a lawyer. Nevertheless, it is necessary to inform yourself of what you are asked to do so that you are not surprised when asked.
– It is recommended to analyze the information after consulting a specific secondary source and apply it to the particular situation. You should be able to identify problems, have relevant legal and jurisprudential references, and start organizing your analysis of the problem. By doing this at every stage of your research and before the next stage of research, you save research time, identify problems that require more research, and can identify what the next logical source of research will be. For example, after consulting an initial secondary source, you may want to make sure that a particular law has not changed, or you may want to “write down” your references before conducting a topic search. Although the task of conducting legal research is usually performed by the lawyer himself, an employee or a paralegal, it is not uncommon for a legal secretary to be asked to conduct minor or preliminary research for a lawyer. 2. A good place to start is always to find the bylaws that apply to the problem. In Trinidad and Tobago, our statues are found in the Laws of Trinidad and Tobago, a collection of volumes of which most lawyers have a copy. For example, the Sexual Offences Act applies to the offence of rape.
After finding this law in the laws of Trinidad and Tobago and reading the relevant sections, you need to find cases where the law has been applied. This helps the lawyer understand how legal principles work so they know how best to plead their client`s case. – Money is fundamental in legal research. Write down the date of the source you are viewing and update the law since that date.
Comments are closed.