research methods and legal writing pdf thesis

Beyond hermeneutical analysis proper, doctrinal scholarship frequently also engages in the following activities: A typical article in a law journal will often encompass all four types of activities in some form, as the following example shows. Sometimes this develops into a distinct style of legal research, which we could describe as a specific “approach” in legal scholarship. Beyond that, they may posit different values for the interpretation of law: e.g., “behavioral law and economics” conceptualizes individuals in a more realistic way than mainstream “law and economics”, i.e., often driven by “irrational” considerations. In practice, legal gender studies is well integrated into the interdisciplinary gender studies discourse, with jurists frequently incorporating non-jurist scholarship and vice versa. For example, how is hate speech regulated? We have also argued that these two activities are usually pursued under the premise that the legal system forms, or should form, a coherent whole. Theses written at law faculties often employ a doctrinal approach, which we defined as the use of hermeneutical instruments in the form of the “legal method” and “discourse analysis”. Similarly, when the legal system is “ordered”, such “ordering” or “systematization” activity must necessarily be informed by certain values or principles. “legal gender studies” frequently draws from non-legal research on sexuality and gender; “law and economics” employs economic ideas, “behavioral law and economics” draws from psychology), some share a specific social theory of the law (e.g. The judge may therefore be more inclined to invalidate the contract because of the unfair terms and conditions. These different aspects of doctrinal scholarship may often not be clearly distinguishable; rather, they often blend into each other. mainstream “law and economics” is usually close to neoliberal policy views). Research Design And Methodology Dr W A Kritsonis. Write after remainder of proposal is completed. Consider the following example: the government holds that a European Directive can be implemented correctly only in one specific way. UNIT 10: WRITING A RESEARCH REPORT-----208 . This is an example for a research question that mainly focuses on systematization (I just made this one up): Under certain conditions, Union citizens have a right to receive social assistance from the Member State where they reside under the free movement provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Possible methods include: 1. For example, as discussed, the analysis of the reasons provided by an institution to justify their discretionary choices may not necessarily explain why it made that specific choice (for example, a judge may have decided a certain way for reasons of convenience or based on political convictions, and constructed her reasoning accordingly). The following concluding points can be made: 9 Micro-Habits That Will Completely Change Your Life in a Year, Science Might Have Identified the Optimal Human Diet, 6 Signs a Woman Wants to Be Approached by You, How To Make Enough Money to Retire in the Next 5 Years, How ‘Verbal Aikido’ Can Help You Avoid Stupid Arguments, 15 Ideas You Can Steal to Make the Next 12 Months a Period of Remarkable Growth, What If Trump Gets Really Sick? if they show different symptoms, and whether doctors are sufficiently aware of this. Do use subheads throughout. A typical question drawing from the comparative approach could be one of the following: Such comparisons may in turn be an interesting basis for critical analysis: Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field, which stretches across political science, sociology, psychology, economics, biology and medicine. By contrast, insights from alternative economic approaches, such as Keynesianism or Institutionalism, are usually ignored. Are there similarities or differences between the countries? Consequently, the judge will be reluctant to invalidate the contract. B. Finally, we saw that legal scholars often employ what we termed specific “. focusing on how e.g. Chapter I. The core assumption is that gender is a relevant category of analysis. INTRODUCTION. scholars drawing from Foucault, or who employ a Marxist framework), Some share a specific worldview, or parts thereof (e.g. While the Court approaches this task on the basis of a seemingly common-sensical understanding of trade and mobility, it can be shown that this understanding is in fact shaped by a specific economic approach, namely neoclassical economics. In order to challenge this evaluation, you would have to make a plausible argument that this evaluation is in fact incorrect. 2. “legal gender studies” assumes that gender is an important analytical category). How is a specific issue regulated in different countries? Outline for Empirical Master's Theses . In practice, however, it frequently works the other way around: first, a method is picked, and only then is it asked which research questions can plausibly be tackled from that perspective. How high can certain fines be? We have said that a central theme in legal scholarship concerns the dividing line between law and politics, i.e., between what is legally required and what is enabled. Maybe the following comparison is helpful for you: you may remember that we compared the activity of legal scholars to re-arranging a room when a new piece of furniture is acquired: the new and the existing pieces of furniture are moved around until a satisfiable room arrangement is found, and all pieces work well together. It can be seen in this schematic description of a generic article that it usually employs 1) the “legal method” to establish the validity of a measure, to criticize an incorrect application of the law, or to analyze a specific legal concept; 2) “discourse analysis” to identify the justifications provided by the institution for exercising their discretion they way it did; 3) policy arguments when these justifications are evaluated, and alternative proposals are made; 4) political commentary, when the political and factual background of a measure is discussed, or when the article speculates about future developments. 2. Mainstream “law and economics” scholars would argue that the law should be interpreted on the basis of what is necessary to make the markets run optimally. How is an international agreement or a European measure implemented or applied in the different Member States? Comparative law is a distinct approach in legal scholarship, and has developed specific sub-disciplines (e.g. 10 Research Action Plan Examples Pdf Word Pages Examples. ability in “Legal Research and Writing” (LRW) courses.2 English majors may assume LRW will be the easy course in the curricu-lum while engineers may fear writing papers for the first time in years. You thereby, Third, you identify the arguments the government forwarded to justify its interpretation (apart from the argument that it is legally required, which you already rejected). We already mentioned that the law, as a social phenomenon, can be researched with different methods stemming from the various social sciences, such as political science, sociology or psychology. consumers or producers?). It is very important to note that review should not be simply a description of what others have published in the form of a set of summaries, but should take the form of a : 20 : critical discussion, showing insight and an awareness of differing arguments, theories and approaches. However, the recent Gauweiler judgment provides support for the claim that the ECB’s mandate is in fact much broader. The two elements of “law and economics” are, as such, unrelated: the first is about studying law and legal processes from a non-legal research perspective, applying e.g. Within doctrinal research, you can pursue different strategies of argumentation. They claim that they are legally required to act in a certain way, but you can show that under the law they would have other options, which means that they are really making a discretionary or “political” choice for employing a specific interpretation. Alternative approaches — e.g. The problem is, however, that there is not one “correct” economic viewpoint. Legal gender studies adopts this focus on gender as an analytical category, and allows for many interesting research questions: It is quite obvious that legal gender studies quickly touches on issues that require methods other than hermeneutics, such as employment statistics. Research Paperology Sample Writing Chapter Paper Methodology . This, in turn, could be the basis of criticizing the legislator for choosing a specific solution and not providing good-enough reasons for that. or by the issue or thesis researcher are arguing and will provide the framework for researchers’ further work. Legal research and research methodologies. (→ This is an application of “discourse analysis”), Fourth, you could reject the government’s arguments, and argue that better arguments can be made for another interpretation. Here we provide stylized examples, as well as possible research questions that are based on these different strategies. 3. For example, it could be researched at which points and how the law distinguishes between two or. By Lynne Taylor, from Legal Writing: A Complete Guide for a Career in Law (LexisNexis, 2014). Kothari, Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques (New Delhi: Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1985). Quantitative studies(e.g. It will be argued that balancing under internal market law would frequently come to different outcomes if the different economical views are taken into account. Legal Research Methodology. The present thesis researches in how far the judgment Dano has limited the access to social assistance, and whether the FRC establishes certain minimum standards in that regard. Consequently, law can also be analyzed on the basis of “typically” economic research methods (these are essentially quantitative methods also employed e.g. For example, it could be interesting to find out what the causes of the differences between Member States are. Research Methods by Kurt Kent 3/27/2001 . some share a specific analytical focus (e.g. in psychology or sociology) in order to answer “economic” research questions (e.g., does a specific tort law system have a distributive bias in favor of e.g. Accordingly, legal methodology is a scientific discipline dealing with methods of discerning law and legal phenomena. When you develop your research question, you should be attentive as to which questions you can plausibly answer when you employ hermeneutical instruments, but also which questions cannot reasonably be addressed. Legal Methodology & Legal Research and Writing A Very Short Introduction Methodology is a scientific discipline which pertains to defining and systematizing methods, that is, appropriate ways of discerning the subject of investigation. A. Bruce L. Berg, Qualitative Research Methods For The Social Sciences (London, Allyn and Bacon, 2001). Engaging in research is a necessary precursor to writing a research paper. How would such “value” become relevant in law? The following topics usually will be included. Medical researchers may be interested in whether diseases affect women and men differently, e.g. Business Plan Apa Research Paper Methodology … Page or two. some share a specific technique (e.g. However, they share a specific trait that might be interesting for your research. Rather, there are a number of very different views of how the economy works (Neoclassical, Keynesian, Marxist, green, etc. There are many different approaches: These different approaches usually stay within the broader scope of doctrinal scholarship. However, “law and economics” does not really distinguish between the two, which has ideologically problematic consequences: while it is certainly legitimate and interesting to research law on the basis of “economic” methods, this does not, as such, justify why a specific ideological view is picked as the “correct” economic view that is supposed to shape the interpretation of law. We already mentioned that the law, as a social phenomenon, can be researched with different methods stemming from the various social sciences, such as political science, sociology or psychology. Thus, doctrinal scholarship is engaged in the systematization of the legal system. A possible argumentation structure could look like this: In internal market law, the CJEU routinely has to balance the restrictive effects of national measures on cross-border trade and mobility on the one hand with the policy objectives these measures pursue on the other. interviews with judge… Being clear about the method you employ helps you to stay aware of the method’s blind spots as well. The “law and economics” approach combines a variety of aspects or elements that are quite unrelated, at least at first sight. In particular, we argued that legal scholars are usually engaged in the following activities: We have also argued that these two types of hermeneutical research are usually not held apart in legal discourse, but that it is useful to distinguish between the two for a better understanding of what doctrinal scholarship does, and in particular to understand how legal measures can be contested (we will further discuss this second point a little later). “Law and economics” is also termed, by its proponents, the “economic analysis of the law”: this definition already points towards two different elements of this approach: The first element is easy to understand: we already discussed that law, as a societal phenomenon, can be analyzed from the perspective of various social sciences: for example, quantitative studies may show how specific psychological states (e.g. However, such re-arranging or ordering activity requires an implicit assumption about what is a “good” way of organizing rooms (e.g., don’t put the wardrobe in the middle of the room or in front of windows or doors). A comparative research may also be the basis for a policy proposal to reform the national law (e.g., let’s adopt the Norwegian approach to ensure gender equality in corporate boardrooms). Qualitative studies(e.g. For example, they may share a specific style of analysis, tend to draw from insights from a specific non-legal discipline, or apply specific assumptions (or share a specific worldview). This is an example research question that employs such strategy (I also made it up just now): It is often argued that the European Treaties require the European Central Bank (ECB) to exclusively pursue the objective of low inflation. ), and consequently also how a legal system should be interpreted. Legal gender studies, in conjunction with the success of the feminist movement in general, has given rise to specific bodies of law that deal with gender discrimination (such as anti-discrimination law); this further stabilizes legal gender studies as a distinct scholarly approach within legal scholarship. You will see that legal scholars who work on a specific area (e.g. But all students bring some strengths and some weak-nesses to LRW. In a metaphorical sense it could be argued that this type of argumentation pushes the law/politics line: an alleged legal necessity is exposed as a political choice. ), First, you describe the relevant norm or case law, Then you identify the presence of a certain view in the case law, for example a certain idea about gender roles ( → “discourse analysis”), Then you show, possibly through the discussion of the relevant social science literature on the issue, that this in fact is a biased view, and that other views are possible ( → policy arguments), Then you show that this biased view is not actually required by the higher-ranking norm, but that it merely constitutes one among a number of possible interpretations (→ “legal method”), then you analyze the arguments (or, if they are absent, possible arguments) to defend the court’s biased view (→ “discourse analysis”). Is it referred to in law-making or adjudication? By contrast, a judge informed by “behavioral law and economics” does not assume that consumers always act in a way that is increasing their utility. In your thesis, you may choose to analyze a new judgment or norm within the broader context of the legal system. “behavioral law and economics” — may focus in different non-legal research methods to study the law (e.g., psychological) and may propose different research questions (e.g. regarding guardianship) is based on biased views of gender roles, of certain illnesses or handicaps, or of old age. C.R. Finally you reject the these arguments, and make alternative arguments why a different evaluation would be justified ( → policy argument). However, in reading legal scholarship and in writing your own thesis it is useful to be aware of these different activities. First, it could be argued that the implementation has negative practical effects in some form (→ policy argument). It also intends to make them familiar with nature, scope, and significance of legal research. Based on what we discussed, we can sketch the following outline of a “typical” article in a law journal. You will remember that law is always under-determined: this means that there are always multiple interpretations possible, and lawyers have to pick one among them (e.g., a judge picks one possible interpretation of a legal provision over others). Specific sub-disciplines ( e.g implementation has negative practical effects in some form ( → policy argument ) rather, often. Views of gender roles, of certain illnesses or handicaps, or of old age Taylor from... Wiley Eastern Ltd., 1985 ) problem is, however, the recent Gauweiler judgment support! Following example: the government holds that a European Directive can be implemented correctly in... Regarding guardianship ) is based on what we termed specific “ approach ” research methods and legal writing pdf thesis legal.. 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