Free legal advice is hard to come by as legal help is expensive. Much of the cost is related to the time attorneys spend conducting legal research. Before someone hires a lawyer, they should perform a legal research on their own. This can result in significant savings on legal bills. There are a number of free legal resources on the Internet that can be used for this purpose. This article describes a method anyone can use to research any legal issue using free resources on the Internet.
Start by Researching Broad Categories of Law in General
The purpose of legal research is to find the very specific laws that apply to a given legal issue. Unless the researcher has been trained to perform legal research or experience with this particular legal issue, the research process should start by considering the law in general. This means the researcher must cast his nets wide. Starting with a broad category of law is advisable.
This part of the legal research process is not aimed at discovering the answer to specific legal questions. Rather, this part of the legal research process is aimed at gaining an understanding of what issues and sub-issues should be considered. This will often help change the way the legal issue is worded and lead the researcher down an entirely different path. Unfortunately, researchers often succumb to the temptation to skip this step and, as a result, they often miss these valuable alternative research paths. continue reading…