Where do we find legal material

There are two major sources 1) law library 2) Inter Net

1) law library contains highly specialized material such as commentaries of renowned authors, statutory law reports of decided cases, digests, legal encyclopedias & law lexicons.

Encyclopedias 

The contents of encyclopedias are arranged in alphabetical order, covering all topics. They are a treasure house of knowledge on various subjects of law.

Halsbury’s law of England is the most important set of encyclopedia which gives details and dates of the law on a particular subject.  & universal ‘s encyclopedia of important central acts and rules; malik & Manchanda’s complete digest of supreme court cases & encyclopedia of statutory rules and central acts are some of the legal encyclopedias published in India. 

Dictionaries  

General & in addition to the standard unabridged dictionaries of the English language, dictionaries that serve a special purpose of interests .there are many separate dictionaries of legal terms and phrases. such as the law lexicon of P. Ramanatha Aiyar published by Wadhwa,  burrow’s words & phrases; blacks law dictionaries, etc 

Books of eminent authors on different legal subjects  

Legal libraries contain books written by different authors for the reference & research it is also one of the sources to find out the legal material 

Legislative material 

Acts, rules, notifications, orders etc. of government and state governments. 

Official reports, legal journals

Legal libraries subscribe to official gazettes of the government of India and state governments, national and international legal magazines & journals

Digests  

Libraries have a legal digest of air and madras law journal of India and digests of other countries.

2) internet 

We can get information relating to national and international statutes, agreements, and details of case laws relating to particular issues with the use of (dot) com online stores through different websites with the help of computers. 

Ex; law.Cornell. edu 

The materials used for legal research are generally divided into two broad categories: primary sources and secondary sources. 

 Primary legal sources are the actual law in the form of constitutions, court cases, statutes, and administrative rules and regulations.  

Secondary legal sources may restate the law, but they also discuss, analyze, describe, explain, or critique it as well.  Secondary sources are used to help locate primary sources of law, define legal words and phrases, or help in legal research.

Primary law consists of sources that state the actual law.  These sources include:

1. Constitution (either federal or state)

2. Statutes (laws enacted by legislatures); municipal codes (enacted by local councils)

3. Cases (opinions handed down by courts)

4. Rules and Regulations (established by administrative government agencies)

5. Treaties

Secondary Sources ; Primary legal materials are written in precise legal language, to limit ambiguity in court and are not easy reading. Make use of secondary sources (which summarize the main points and comment on the primary sources) to help clarify things for you. These include:

Books about the law – the library has an extensive collection of law books (both printed and electronic). You can find these by searching the Library Catalog.

• Reference books about the law – can be very useful for helping you to understand legal language (e.g. Mens rea). 
• Journal articles about the law – the library also has a large collection of legal journals (both printed and electronic).
• Newspaper articles about the law – if the legal issue you are interested in has been in the news than newspaper articles could be extremely useful. Newspaper articles and news sources should always be supplemented by more academic material.
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