Legal researchers often spend a lot of time reading law books.
A legal researcher is a professional whose specialty is conducting legal research, summaries, and prior case files. These researchers often work for lawyers, but may also work for universities, government agencies, publications, judges, and businesses. Most of the time, their research is focused on finding past case law that is applicable to a current case.
Legal investigators can refer to past cases to help them create precedent before trial.
In many cases, an attorney preparing a case will use a legal researcher to unearth applicable law that strengthens their position or can be used against them in court. Investigation is time consuming and is carried out more efficiently by those who are experts in the field, so using the services of an investigator can free up the lawyer’s time to focus on other activities, such as preparing witnesses for trial. court and work with your client. . Other types of employers may hire legal investigators as consultants to investigate specific situations or may employ them on a regular basis if they encounter situations that require this type of expertise frequently.
Large law firms often hire legal researchers as direct employees.
The main role of a legal investigator is to find relevant information. She must be able to identify information that could hurt a client’s case, as well as information that could help them. Legal researchers spend a lot of time in physical or online law libraries, searching court records, case documents, ordinances, law books, and databases. Over time, a good legal researcher will develop enough experience to know exactly which resources are most likely to contain the information he needs. Most of these professionals subscribe to professional magazines that keep them up to date on new trends and technologies that can make their jobs easier and help them stay on the lookout for new sources of information.
Legal investigators can do much of their work online, searching court records and case documents.
Once a legal researcher has found the information they seek, they must summarize their findings for the attorney or client in a usable format. All of these summaries should contain the basic information the researcher wants to convey and should provide relevant information about the site, such as the type of resource providing the information, the specific name of the site or book where the information was found, and its relevance to the case. . When providing case law information, the abstract should generally also include the name, date, and jurisdiction of the case.
Large law firms often hire legal researchers as direct employees. These investigators provide services to all of the firm’s attorneys. A legal researcher can also be a freelance consultant who takes clients for work. Legal investigators often have some form of formal legal training and may be certified paralegals or even attorneys.