RESEARCH METHODS AND LEGAL WRITING

(One-Year LL.M. programme, July-October 2017)

Instructors: Dr. C. Uma Maheshwari, Dr. Amita Dhanda & Mr. Sidharth Chauhan
National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR), Hyderabad

Mandatory Course carrying 4 credits (Approximately 48 class hours)

Class timings: Wednesdays and Fridays (9 am 11 am)

Course Rationale:

The one-year LL.M. programme lays considerable emphasis upon independent

research and writing. The objective is to ensure that the students will be prepared to
produce meaningful academic writing in law and allied disciplines after completing this
programme. Each student enrolled in this programme is required to produce three
seminar papers and a mid-length dissertation over the course of the academic year. These
account for nearly 40% of the aggregate course credit requirements. Hence, this
mandatory course is designed to provide an enabling framework for the same.

Research is very often construed as a regimen of procedures or steps that are

perfunctorily applied to data in order to produce some results. This course resists this
mechanical view of the research process. We see it as an activity an ongoing enquiry
built upon reasoning, reflection and rigorous questioning in areas that interest us.
Therefore, research must be embodied in the researcher through practice and reflection.
Hence, this course aims to provide the necessary skills for evaluating existing materials
and designing your own research process. To this end, the course is divided into two parts
as outlined below:-

I. The first part will take you through the essential steps such as identifying a
researchable problem, searching for relevant literature, choosing an appropriate
methodology and framing a coherent research proposal.
II. The second part will emphasize the important considerations for the writing
process, especially in the context of doctrinal as well as empirical legal research.
There will also be some coverage related to the use of comparative sources.

Part I: Essential understanding of Research, Research process and presenting

research

1(a) Understanding research: This introductory module focuses on the transition from
an intuitive understanding of research to a more scientific form which entails a more
rigorous, intentional and theory guided process of conducting systematic investigation.
Essentially, we explore the idea of what constitutes research and what is not research?
How is it done? What are the overlapping interests that guide structured enquiries? For
this purpose, this part of the course will include a diverse set of pedagogical materials
such as handouts, videos and readings in order to illustrate the following:-
(i) What is Research? Meaning and Objectives
(ii) Legal Research - Meaning, scope and purpose.

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 (iii) Relation between law and society and Research for legal reform
(iv)Types/kinds of research:
Doctrinal and Empirical;
Applied, fundamental; Library research, field research and laboratory
research, analytical, descriptive, conceptual
Participatory and NonParticipatory
Comparative, Historical, Statistical, Critical, Socio-Legal; Mono
disciplinary, trans disciplinary, inter-disciplinary (multi- disciplinary)
research
Quantitative and qualitative and the Delphi one-time, longitudinal and
cross-sectional

Readings:

Cohen, L., Manion, L., Morrison, K. (2006). The nature of enquiry, in Research
methods in Education, Routledge: London. (pp. 1-47).

Cooper, H., Hedges, L. V., and Valentine, J. C. (2009). Research as a Scientific

Process, in Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis (2nd edn.).
Russell Sage Foundation: New York.

Cooper, H., Hedges, L. V., and Valentine, J. C. (2009). Formulating a problem:

Hypotheses and Problems in Research Synthesis, in Handbook of Research
Synthesis and Meta-Analysis (2nd edn). Russell Sage Foundation: New York.

Cooper, H., Hedges, L. V., and Valentine, J. C. (2009). Searching the literature:
Using Reference Databases and Grey Literature, in Handbook of Research
Synthesis and Meta-Analysis.(2nd edn.). Russell Sage Foundation: New York.

1(b) Research methods v. Research Methodology: The objective will be to

simultaneously draw a distinction between methods as a set of procedures and
methodology as a theoretical construct while engaging in a synchrony between the two.
Therefore in this part, we will concentrate on the theoretical and methodological
considerations of research vis--vis the focus of your specific investigation. Hence,
instead of dealing with concepts in an abstract manner, this module will take you through
a few data-based research papers. You will examine the extent of synchronization
between the theory, methodology and the objective of an investigation. This approach can
have multiple spin-offs out of which the focus is on one: making sense and making a
deliberate choice among the theoretical, methodological and analytical variations that are
possible in your research. This skill will directly feed into the conceptualization of your
study which includes numerous stages such as the identification of a research problem,
formulating research questions, identifying relevant sources, the ethical aspects of
researching, designing and procedural aspects of data collection and analysis. We, rather
ambitiously, intend to introduce you to the concepts of research synthesis and meta-
analysis as the guiding principles for your future engagement.

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 (i) Research Design
(ii) Various Steps in conducting Research: Research Process
(iii) Literature Review
(iv)Research Problem: Identification and Formulation
(v) Hypothesis
(vi)Tools and Techniques for Collection of Data (Primary and Secondary Sources)
1. Observation Method
2. Questionnaire
3. Interview
4. Case study
5. Sampling
6. Analysis and Interpretation of Data
a. Quantitative (statistics)
b. Qualitative (coding)
Readings:

David S. Abrams, Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, Do Judges Vary

in their Treatment of Race?, 41(2) The Journal of Legal Studies 347-383 (2012).

Lisa G Aspinwall, Teneille R. Brown, James Tabery (2012), The double-edged

sword: Does Bio-mechanism increase or decrease judges sentencing of
psychopaths? 337 Science, 606, 846-60. (for content analysis- coding,
categorizing, theming)

C.H. de Kogel and E.J.M.C. Westgeest (2015). Neuroscientific and behavioral

genetic information in criminal cases in the Netherlands, Journal of Law and the
Biosciences, 580605.

Cohen, L., Manion, L., Morrison, K. (2006). The ethics of social research, in
Research methods in Education, Routledge: London. (pp. 51-75).

Part II: Approaches to Legal Research

In the second half of the course, we will focus on the norms of legal scholarship.
We will begin by asking whether legal writing can be clearly distinguished from creative
writing (novels, poems, short stories and essays) and other forms of non-fiction writing
(such as journalism, biographies and travelogues). The next step will be an introduction
to the different forms of legal writing that can be broadly grouped under the heads of
academic legal writing (law review articles, comments on judicial decisions, book
reviews, opinion pieces and legislative analysis to name a few) as opposed to
professional legal writing (office memos, case briefs, advisory memos for clients,
documents submitted to courts as part of litigation). Since this course is closely tied to the
preparation of your seminar papers and the dissertation, the emphasis will clearly be on
academic legal writing.

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 The discussion will then turn to the accepted categorization of sources in legal
scholarship (primary, secondary and tertiary) and strategies for prioritizing amongst them
during the research and writing process. This will be followed by an emphasis on the
norms of academic integrity and the prominent legal citation styles such as The Bluebook
(Harvard), The Maroon Book (Chicago) and OSCOLA (Oxford) among others. The
students will be required to prepare short notes based on doctrinal materials such as
statutory provisions, administrative rules and judicial decisions, so as to familiarize them
with the referencing styles as well as the strictures against plagiarism. We will also build
on the earlier coverage with respect to searching for relevant literature in a law library
(textbooks, commentaries, reports of judicial decisions and scholarly articles) as well as
through online sources [paid databases such as Westlaw, JSTOR, HeinOnline, LexisNexis
and Manupatra as well as freely available databases such as the Cornell Legal
Information Institute, the Avalon Project, the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN),
IndianKanoon and Shodhganga to name a few]. In recent years, some collaborative blogs
devoted to specific sub-fields have also become a useful source for tracking the latest
legal developments and publications.

While empirical legal research is still an underdeveloped field in India, it will be

profitable to discuss some scholarly contributions that have examined legal controversies
through the analysis of materials such as government statistics, field notes and structured
interviews among other methods. In this sense, legal scholarship has much to gain from
fields such as economics, sociology and anthropology. Towards the end of the course, we
will also examine some articles that illustrate contemporary trends in comparative legal
research.

Readings:

Richard Hyland, A Defence of Legal Writing, 134(3) University of

Pennsylvania Law Review 599-626 (1986).

John Leubsdorf, The Structure of Judicial Opinions, 86 Minnesota Law Review

447-496 (2001).

Ruggero J. Aldisert, Stephen Clowney and Jeremy D. Peterson, Logic for Law
Students: How to Think Like a Lawyer, 69(1) University of Pittsburgh Law
Review 100-121 (2007).

Terry Hutchinson and Nigel Duncan, Defining and Describing What We Do:
Doctrinal Legal Research, 17(1) Deakin Law Review 83-119 (2012).

Rajeev Dhavan, Means, Motives and Opportunities: Reflecting on Legal

Research in India, 50(6) Modern Law Review 725-749 (1987).

Theodore Eisenberg, The Origins, Nature and Promise of Empirical Legal

Studies and a Response to Concerns, University of Illinois Law Review 1713-
1738 (2011).

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 Ran Hirschl, The Question of Case Selection in Comparative Constitutional
Law, 53(1) American Journal of Comparative Law 125-155 (2005).

Evaluation Scheme:

Nature of Assignment Description Marks Dates

Initial Proposal This should identify the field in which you 10 August 11,
(1,000-1,200 words) intend to write your dissertation as well as 2017
the significant issues that you seek to
examine as part of the same. It is also
advisable to include a list of references.
Response Piece You will critique the methodology of an 15 September 8,
(1,200-1,500 words) article from a peer-reviewed journal which is 2017
related to one of your seminar papers. The
critique should be 3-5 pages long and should
present analysis based on the criteria used to
judge the quality of research.
Presentation: You are expected to make a 10-15 minute 10 October 3-7,
presentation based on the research conducted 2017
up to that stage. This will be followed by
feedback from the instructors and peers. The
class will be divided into smaller groups for
the purpose of these presentations.
Dissertation Proposal This will serve as the basis for developing 25 October 20,
(2,000-2,500 words) your dissertation. It will include a thematic 2017
introduction, statement of research
objectives, the framing of research questions,
description of the proposed methodology and
an illustrative bibliography. The detailed
format will be discussed in class.
Examination There will be an exam at the end of the 40 Last week of
semester. This exam will be a combination of September
definitions, multiple choice questions, short (Exact date
answers and a comprehension exercise based will be
on a research study. notified later)