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Getting started with legal research
This introductory legal research guide will help you to get started with legal research. Read through the outlines below to learn what is covered in each section of this guide. You can navigate to these sections via the menu on the left.
Key books: Below is a list of useful legal research textbooks which can be used in addition to your prescribed resources.
Your first steps in legal research: This section is the first place you should start. It maps out the difference between primary and secondary sources of law. There are also some useful videos on developing key research skills.
Legal writing skills: Contains links to useful books and resources on legal writing skills.
Study guides: Links to commercial legal publishers short topical guides, including case notes and Q & A exam study guides.
International treaties: This section contains some useful resources on the Australian treaty making process, links to important treaties and examples of referencing styles.
Current awareness: How to keep up to date with new developments in the law, as well as a list of recent acquisitions.
Unit Help: Customised Library Resource Guides for specific unit codes.
Key Books
Legal Research
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Research and statutory interpretation : a custom publication for Deakin University by ISBN: 9780409353396Publication Date: 2021Part one: Introduction -- Part two: Studying law in Australia -- Part three: Academic legal writing -- Part four: The Australian legal system -- Part five: Case law and precedents -- Part six: Legislation and Statutory interpretation -- Part seven: Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities -- Part eight: Secondary sources of law -- Part nine: Legal referencing -- Part ten: The essential legal toolkit -- Index -
Laying down the law by ISBN: 9780409351941Publication Date: 2021Laying Down the Law provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the study of law. Essential foundation topics covered include Australia’s legal system and sources of law while discussion of current issues highlights the context in which our legal system operates and the role and responsibilities of the legal profession.
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Connecting with law by ISBN: 9780190310851Publication Date: 2019This book introduces students to the foundations of law in a thought provoking way, challenging them to think critically, question ideas and connect with the law. -
The New Lawyer by Publication Date: 2019The New Lawyer has been updated to ensure that first year law students do not feel overwhelmed by the transition to law school. -
Statutory interpretation : principles and context by ISBN: 9780409352313Publication Date: 2021Statutory interpretation has become the most important aspect of legal practice in Australia today, with many areas of law determined solely by statute. A strong understanding of the law and principles of statutory interpretation is essential for studying and practising law.
This text provides readers with an up-to-date analysis on the process and principles of statutory interpretation in Australia, together with a discussion on the Australian legislative process and how legislation operates. -
Legal Referencing by ISBN: 9780409350708Publication Date: 2019Correct legal referencing is an essential skill for students, academics and other legal writers. In this indispensable guide, the author explains the ‘hows and whys’ of good legal referencing and writing. In this fifth edition, the author discusses how to cite legal and non-legal sources. The citation requirements of the fourth edition of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation are clearly explained. Additionally, ‘how to’ examples are provided together with a discussion of citation management systems.
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Context and Method in Australian Law by Publication Date: 2019This textbook takes an innovative and novel approach to the teaching and learning of first-year law students. It is underpinned by active student learning though an inquiry-guided learning approach. -
Legal problem solving and syllogistic analysis : a guide for foundation law students by Publication Date: 2016Understanding how to go about solving legal problems is a critical skill law students require in order to achieve success at law school and later in professional practice. This innovative text is a guide to developing students' critical thinking in solving legal problems through the application of the principles of logic. The authors explain how syllogistic analysis provides the underlying basis for legal problem solving using the IRAC method commonly taught in foundation law studies.
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Legislation and statutory interpretation by Publication Date: 2015Covers the relevance of legislation and statutory interpretation; legislation as a primary source of law ; the format of legislation; the legislative process ; the courts' approach to interpretation ; answering problem questions; how to research legislation.
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A practical guide to legal research by Publication Date: 2017A Practical Guide to Legal Research, 4th Edition, is a concise and accessible guide to legal research. It presents the essential skills of legal research in Australian Law and International Law, and provides focused examples that allow readers immediate practice. The Guide moves logically through the process of legal research by actually showing the reader how to do legal research, so is therefore an ideal resource for law students, legal information professionals and legal professionals.
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Nemes and Coss' effective legal research by ISBN: 9780409348095Publication Date: 2018Nemes & Coss' Effective Legal Research, 7th edition is a guide to mastering the techniques and strategies that are vital for successful legal research and writing. The authors canvass a wide variety of electronic and print-based resources relevant to Australian law and provide worked examples based on contextual problems and pointers to potential dangers.
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Foundations of Australian Law by Publication Date: 2017Foundations of Australian Law is pitched exactly at the right level - in terms of both content and language - for business students, for law students, and for international students. This fifth edition has been fully updated to include changes in the law. -
Principles and practice of Australian law by Publication Date: 2020As with previous editions, one of the book’s main aims is to provide an engaging introduction to the law that teaches foundational skills and knowledge while encouraging students to think broadly and critically about the law, their study of it and how they might put it to use.
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Western Legal Traditions by Publication Date: 2015The rule of law constitutes the hallmark of contemporary Western society. However, public perceptions and attitudes to the law can vary in space and time. This book explores legal solutions to selected problem scenarios in their broader historical, economic, political and societal context. The focus is on the legal traditions of civil law and common law.
Legal Writing
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Grammar for lawyers by Publication Date: 2013Offers a succinct and practical guide to effective legal writing and to precise legal reading, drawing on both the expertise of professional grammarians and the analytical skills of judges in interpreting legal writing in the courts. The importance of understanding basic grammatical principles is placed in the context of judicial comment and analysis from Australia and other common law jurisdictions. -
Legal usage : a modern style guide by Publication Date: 2018Legal Usage A Modern Style Guide is a clear, unambiguous guide to good legal usage. It highlights the techniques that legal writers in the common law tradition need for effective, compelling and readable legal writing.
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Legal Writing by Publication Date: 2016Good legal writing is an inherently ethical practice and fundamental to professionalism and lawyering. This book emphasises the link between legal writing and ethics as it guides readers through phases of the writing process and helps them develop effective legal writing skills essential for both academic and professional contexts. -
Effective legal writing : a practical guide by Publication Date: 2016This practical, student-focused text introduces writing skills essential for successful study in law and explains how to apply them in a legal context. It is designed as a course book for first year law students with ongoing relevance as a resource in subsequent years at law school and beyond. Basic literacy, legal literacy and writing skills are explored in a way that is fully integrated into legal content, reflecting current pedagogical best-practice. The text assists students to develop sound legal writing skills, providing a solid foundation to enhance performance in professional legal writing tasks. It includes many examples, case-studies and exercises and is supported by extensive online resources for lecturers.
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Clear and precise : writing skills for today's lawyer by Publication Date: 2010"Legalese" can be a huge deterrent to all those trying to understand legal forms and processes. This book is a manual that aims to encourage law students and lawyers to use plain English techniques in the language, structure, content, style and presentation of their writing. -
Language and law : a resource book for students by Publication Date: 2016Language plays an essential role both in creating law and in governing its implementation, Providing an accessible and comprehensive introduction to this subject, 'Language and Law' describes the different registers and genres that make up spoken and written legal language and how they develop over time; analyses real-life examples drawn from court cases from different parts of the world, illustrating the varieties of English used in the courtroom by speakers occupying different roles; addresses the challenges presented to our notions of law and regulation by online communication; discusses the complex role of translation in bilingual and multilingual jurisdictions, including Hong Kong and Canada.
Exam writing
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Law student survival guide : 9 steps to law study success by Publication Date: 2009Now in its second edition, author Claire Macken draws on her experience as both a student and lecturer in law to provide practical study skills suggestions for university law students. -
How to Write Law Essays and Exams by Publication Date: 2018How to Write Law Essays and Exams provides law students with a practical and proven method of analysing and answering essay and exam questions. The book focuses on those questions that give students the most trouble, namely problem questions, but its techniques are equally applicable to other types of essays. -
Mastering Law Studies and Exam Techniques by Publication Date: 2019This is a discretionary student work for both law students and business students studying law that offers a guide to the theory of legal argumentation and explains, together with included sample exam questions, answers and comments, how those skills can be applied in law examinations
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Students' guide to legal writing, law exams and self assessment. by Publication Date: 2010This popular work by experienced law teachers continues to offer law students succinct but essential practical advice on to how to prepare well researched and written work required for assessment in law courses and the strategies for effective preparation and sitting of law exams.
Advanced Research Methods
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Researching and writing in law by Publication Date: 2018Researching and Writing in Law, 4th Edition includes an updated legal research guide. It maps the developments that have occurred and provides keys to the fundamental electronic sources of legal research, as well as exploring traditional doctrinal methodologies. Included in this edition are extensive checklists for locating and validating the law in Australia, England, Canada, the United States and New Zealand as well as China, India and the European Union -
Computational legal studies : the promise and challenge of data-driven research by Publication Date: 2020Featuring contributions from a diverse set of experts, this thought-provoking book offers a visionary introduction to the computational turn in law and the resulting emergence of the computational legal studies field. It explores how computational data creation, collection, and analysis techniques are transforming the way in which we comprehend and study the law, and the implications that this has for the future of legal studies.
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Empirical legal research : a primer by Publication Date: 2020This exciting textbook introduces the basic tenets and methodologies of empirical legal research. Explaining how to initiate and conduct empirical research projects, how to evaluate the methods used and how to analyze and engage with the results, Kees van den Bos provides a vibrant and reliable primer for students and practitioners looking to engage actively in legal research.
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Empirical Legal Research by Publication Date: 2016Empirical Legal Research describes how to investigate the roles of legislation, regulation, legal policies and other legal arrangements at play in society. It is invaluable as a guide to legal scholars, practitioners and students on how to do empirical legal research, covering history, methods, evidence, growth of knowledge and links with normativity. This multidisciplinary approach combines insights and approaches from different social sciences, evaluation studies, Big Data analytics and empirically informed ethics.
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An introduction to empirical legal research by Publication Date: 2014An Introduction to Empirical Legal Research introduces that methodology in a legal context, explaining how empirical analysis can inform legal arguments; how lawyers can set about framing empirical questions, conducting empirical research, analyzing data, and presenting or evaluating the results. The fundamentals of understanding quantitative and qualitative data, statistical models, and the structure of empirical arguments are explained in a way accessible to lawyers with or without formal training in statistics.
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Research methods for law by ISBN: 9781474404259Publication Date: 2017This text introduces undergraduates and postgraduate students to available methods of research - legalistic, empirical, comparative, and theoretical - drawing on actual research projects as examples.
Professional Legal Skills
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Advocacy in Practice by ISBN: 9780409353952Publication Date: 2020This highly esteemed work, now in its 35th year of publication, has once again been written by the authoritative and well-respected author James L Glissan QC, and provides useful and practical checklists for examination, cross and address.
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Practical Legal Skills : Developing your clinical technique by Call Number: ebookPublication Date: 2014Practical Legal Skills is an established and respected handbook for those engaged in legal training at all levels. Written by an expert author team, it covers the practical skills of lawyering, including interviewing, advising, advocacy, writing and drafting, and negotiation and mediation.
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A Practical Guide to Lawyering Skills by ISBN: 9781351169752Publication Date: 2019Legal skills are an important and increasing part of undergraduate law degrees as well as postgraduate vocational law courses. This fully updated fourth edition continues to bring together the theory and practice of these skills in an accessible and practical context. The authors draw on their experience of teaching and of law in practice to develop the core skills taught on both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Skills covered include: written communication; mediation; opinion writing; drafting; advocacy; interviewing; negotiation; legal research.
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Careers in law : a guide for students, graduates and professionals by ISBN: 9789811536274Publication Date: 2020This book addresses the difficult decisions in the life of law students, graduates and young law professionals in deciding the area of legal practice to pursue as a career. This book is a practical guide for any student or current lawyer who is deciding and evaluating their future legal profession.
