How Important is Legal Research and Writing in Legal Sector?

The whole legal scenario has in recent times seen a radical shift in its mode of functioning. Not so long ago, it was like a closed society with law firms offering comprehensive services to their clients.

Every aspect was taken care of in-house and when there was a rise in business budding and promising lawyers were hired to look after certain tedious and mundane tasks while legal luminaries took care of the more serious facets such as interpretation and dissection of law.

This was the arrangement that had prevailed since time immemorial until economic upheavals in the recent past disturbed the very foundation of most industries including the legal sector and necessitated large scale changes.

What was it that really shook up the legal landscape in modern times? The recent financial crash and global recession that took down not merely companies and businesses, but economies of various countries in its wake hit the legal fraternity rather badly.

There was no dearth in business – in fact, there was a huge spike in business with people needing legal help either to ward off takeovers of their companies or to tackle problems with their failed mortgages and other loans.

Law firms found that they were unable to cope with this rush with their existing staff strength while not immediately having the financial means to hire on a large scale. The slump and a tightening of capital and financial markets added to their woes. The only option for them was to take external help from experts who could offer professional help at vastly reduced costs.

One of the first services that were entrusted to specialist agencies was legal research and writing. This is not to belittle its importance – in fact, in terms of the crucial role it plays in the legal industry, it occupies a prime position amongst all back-end services.

The importance of this side of legal functioning will be better understood if these two components are studied in some detail.

Legal Research

This is the activity that identifies and gathers information to strengthen legally any brief, document or contract. The whole process begins with extracting facts from a wide range of sources pertinent to the case in hand, analyzing and interpreting the facts and finally applying the results of the investigation that started the whole cycle.

Hence, the foundation of a strong, watertight case depends largely on this exercise, making it so important for lawyers in general.

It also requires special skills to maintain high standards of research. Thus, it is rightly said that the strength of lawyers does not lie in their knowledge of law, but in their ability to find the relevant sections through research and bring it in tune with their requirements through optimized interpretation of the findings.

The source of research covers free legal websites, Law Chronicles, law libraries and other legal research environments.

Legal Writing

This is extremely crucial for the legal sector and is one reason why it forms a very critical component in the curriculum of law schools. It is a form of technical writing specifically practiced by lawyers, judges, and those in the paralegal profession to resolve clients’ matters.

It has to be precise and accurate and follow the finer nuances of the law failing which the whole write-up will be meaningless and fail in the eyes of law even though it might be grammatically correct in all respects.

Every sentence, every statement and every point made has to be backed by assertions and citations to authority. This is therefore distinct from other types of research writing. Legal writing is a backbone of a well-researched legal document services and both legal research and writing greatly complement each other.

The importance of this function is further reinforced by the fact that spinning of this activity to experts in the legal profession gives much-needed relief to lawyers hard-pressed in fighting court cases and without the time to do justice to this vital element. While it is possible for top-end large legal firms to pull lawyers off existing tasks for research and writing, the small and mid-level firms cannot afford that luxury.

Hence, it is paying for them to have this very specific background work done by others based on which the lawyers can focus on the core activity of court appearances.

If you are looking for superior legal research and writing outsourcing, Cogneesol should be your first choice. We offer cost-effective services and our team of excellent legal researchers and writers will deliver consistent quality work in tune with your requirements.

For detailed information, get in touch with us at [email protected].