OUP’s Idea and Methods of Legal Research by P. Ishwara Bhat – Reprint Edition 2025.

OUP’s Idea and Methods of Legal Research by P. Ishwara Bhat – Reprint Edition 2025.

About Idea and Methods of Legal Research

The book unearths the way in which thinking process is to be streamlined in research; the manner in which a theme is to be built, and the paths through which notions of objectivity, feminism, ethics and purposive character of knowledge are to be internalized in legal research. The proposed book has five components. The first part deals with general matters such as meaning, evolution, and scope of legal research; systematization of thinking process ; objectivity and ethics in legal research; and building a theme through an appropriate research plan. The second part engages with various ways through which doctrinal legal research can be conducted. This includes doctrinal, analytical, historical, comparative, and philosophical methods of conducting legal research. Part Three unravels discussion on non-doctrinal legal research by highlighting empirical, qualitative, and quantitative methods of legal research. It also catalogues the tools employed for non-doctrinal legal research and explains the method of using them. Part four takes to the fields where combination of doctrinal and non-doctrinal legal research can be attempted. Multi-method legal research, policy research, action research, and feminist legal research occupy this field. A point emphasized in various chapters is that legal research cannot afford to have compartmentalization of methods, and that the researcher has to be eclectic and inter-disciplinary in his approach. The final part reflects over the steps involved in research-based critical legal writing, as distinct from client-related or norm-creating legal writing.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Table of Cases
Part- I: General
1. INTRODUCTION: LEGAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY, PURPOSES AND FOOTSTEPS
2. THINKING PROCESS IN LEGAL RESEARCH: DIVERSE METHODS
3. OBJECTIVITY, VALUE NEUTRALITY, ORIGINALITY AND ETHICS IN LEGAL RESEARCH
4. CHOOSING, DESIGNING, AND BUILDING THE LEGAL RESEARCH THEME
Part II: Doctrinal Legal Research Methods
5. DOCTRINAL LEGAL RESEARCH AS A MEANS OF SYNTHESISING FACTS, THOUGHTS AND LEGAL PRINCIPLES
6. ANALYTICAL LEGAL RESEARCH FOR EXPOUNDING THE LEGAL WOR(L)D
7. HISTORICAL METHOD OF LEGAL RESEARCH: IMPLICATIONS AND APPLICATIONS
8. PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH IN LAW: THE POSSIBILITIES
9. COMPARATIVE METHOD OF LEGAL RESEARCH – NATURE, PROCESS AND POTENTIALITY
Part III: Non-doctrinal Legal Research Methods
10. EMPIRICAL LEGAL RESEARCH: NATURE, FEATURES, AND EXPANDING HORIZONS
11. TOOLS OF DATA COLLECTION IN EMPIRICAL OR NON-DOCTRINAL LEGAL RESEARCH
12. QUALITATIVE LEGAL RESEARCH: A METHODOLOGICAL DISCOURSE
13. QUANTITATIVE LEGAL RESEARCH
Part IV: Integrated Methods of Legal Research
14. MULTI-METHOD LEGAL RESEARCH: NATURE, NEED, PROCEDURE, AND POTENTIALITY
15. CANONS, CONTOURS, AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF POLICY RESEARCH IN LAW: A NOTE ON METHODOLOGICAL DISCOURSE
16. ACTION RESEARCH IN LAW: ROLE AND METHODS
17. METHODOLOGY OF FEMINIST LEGAL RESEARCH
Part V: Research Reporting
18. LEGAL WRITING BASED ON RESEARCH
Bibliography
Annexure
Index
About the author

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