Doctrinal Research in Law: Meaning, Scope and Methodology

The doctrinal legal research has been the dominant and most influential research methods in law. The purpose of the present study was twofold; to explore the scope and to analyze the methodologies of doctrinal legal research. After analyzing the systematically selected literature, the present study found that doctrinal research is concerned with methodically finding, examining, explaining and justifying the enacted legal framework. In addition, the doctrinal research was also used to predict the future development in law. Moreover, the study found that doctrinal research methodology was used by legal and non-legal researchers. The study also found that the beginning of the doctrinal legal research is the presence of a legal problem which is followed by finding the relevant legal material including statutory law, constitutional provision pertaining to the problem, by laws, judicial decisions, commentaries of the analysts, encyclopedias and dictionaries. The study further found that after finding the relevant legal material, a researcher is required to analyze the legal material to determine the fitness of the problem or to suggest the solution of legal problem. Further to that, a researcher should also synthesize the legal material to highlight the inconsistencies between enacted legislation and fundamentals legal norms and principles of the legal system. The study also found that a doctrinal research study is concluded by reporting the findings and the recommendations.