I am currently a third-year law student at a Tier 2 law school and have completed a few litigation internships where I was frequently assigned legal research tasks. While I am comfortable finding judgments on SCC Online and Manupatra using basic keywords, I often spend hours going through dozens of cases without being confident that I have identified the leading authorities on the issue. Many times, after submitting my research, my senior points out an important judgment that I completely missed.
The problem is that I know how to search for judgments, but I do not know how experienced lawyers approach legal research strategically. I am unsure how to identify the landmark cases, distinguish between binding and merely persuasive precedents, and determine whether a judgment is still considered good law. I also find it difficult to know when I have researched enough and can confidently stop searching.
My question is: When you are assigned a completely unfamiliar legal issue, what is your step-by-step approach to identifying the most relevant and authoritative case law?
Dear Mentee,
When you are assigned an issue that you’re unfamiliar with, you may find it easy to follow the below mentioned steps:
1. Build the scaffolding before you search.
Start with the architecture of the statute, not the facts of your issue. If the matter concerns competition law, read a good explainer on what the Act regulates and through what mechanism, then read the bare provisions you are actually dealing with. You cannot assess whether a judgment matters until you know what the section says and what question it leaves open.
2. Identify what makes a judgment “landmark.”
Three filters, applied in order:
- Forum and bench strength. A Supreme Court pronouncement binds under Article 141, but only its ratio does, obiter, however attractively phrased, does not. Note bench strength: a Constitution Bench displaces a smaller one, and a coordinate bench cannot overrule a coordinate bench.
- Effect on interpretation. Did the judgment shift how the provision is read, or did it settle a position that lower courts had been reading inconsistently? Both count. A judgment that changes nothing but ends the disagreement is often the more useful authority.
- Subsequent treatment. Look at how the Supreme Court and High Courts have handled it since. Sustained citation as an authority on the point is the strongest signal you have. Equally, check the negative side: has it been overruled, doubted, distinguished into irrelevance, referred to a larger bench, or rendered academic by amendment? Confirm it is still good law before you rely on it.
Keyword search will get you to a shortlist; it will not tell you which case on that list states the law with finality. That determination is yours, and it is the whole point of the exercise.
3. Use secondary sources to verify, not to cite.
Manupatra and SCC remain the primary tools. LiveLaw and Bar & Bench are valuable as a cross-check as their reporting often maps how a long-running issue developed and flags what a judgment actually decided. Use them to locate and orient yourself, then go back and read the judgment itself. Never cite the commentary for the proposition.
Trust this helps.
