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Understanding Legal Research

Legal research is the process of finding information to support legal decision-making. It underpins every aspect of legal work — from document drafting and litigation to compliance and risk assessment.

Legal research is essential for:

• Attorneys and in-house legal teams handling cross-functional legal matters
• Judges, clerks, and paralegals preparing opinions and court filings
• Law students completing coursework or drafting essays
• Tech companies navigating complex privacy laws, data protection, and international regulation

Thorough legal research improves accuracy, strengthens legal reasoning, supports compliance checks, and helps predict case outcomes based on precedent.

The Legal Research Process

Effective legal research balances efficiency and depth. The standard process includes:

1. Identifying the legal issue – Clarify the problem and relevant jurisdiction
2. Gathering preliminary information – Collect facts, internal policies, and key documents
3. Developing a research plan – Prioritize primary sources like statutes, regulations, and relevant case law
4. Database search – Use tools designed for legal professionals (not generic web searches)
5. Analyzing results – Look across court opinions, legislation, and commentary
6. Continuous research – Stay current on legal changes with alerts or AI tools
7. Documenting findings – Maintain proper case citations, records, and audit trails

Modern legal teams use workflow integration, natural language processing, and machine learning-powered tools to improve research quality and productivity.

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Popular Topics to Explore

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Legal Authority and Hierarchy

Understanding the structure of legal authority ensures your research holds up under scrutiny:

• Primary sources – Binding legal authority, such as statutes, court opinions, and administrative regulations.
• Secondary sources – Non-binding but persuasive materials like legal encyclopedias, textbooks, and practitioner commentary.

Knowing the difference between these types of sources, and when to rely on each, will help make your research as robust as possible.

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What is the Best Legal Research Software in 2025?

AI-Powered Legal Research Tools

Modern legal teams now rely more and more on artificial intelligence to speed up research without sacrificing quality:

🔍 – Built for In-House Teams

helps legal professionals reduce research time, improve research speed and efficiency, and empower teams with case law, legislation and guidance notes ready to cite and share.

Natural language processing

accepts search queries like “Can we terminate this SaaS contract under UK law?” - so you can search using the same language you'd use when asking colleagues a question.

Search results are displayed in an easy-to-read format, and in layman's terms. uses generative AI to provide an instant answer to your research question, along with a brief analysis explaining the basis of the result. From there, you can choose to dig deeper into the sources you're interested in.

Filter search by practice areas and jurisdiction

Legal professionals working in different practice areas have very different research needs. With 's personalization filters, in-house teams can specify their practice area to ensure that results are tailored and relevant.

Similarly, when conducting a case law search, it's important that the jurisdiction is specified. offers adaptability across all governing laws with the click of a button, providing a smooth user experience.

Have a conversation with your research

has enhanced research capabilities, which allow you to ask follow-up questions about your results. This conversation-style approach, using generative AI, improves research speed and productivity.

Thousands of sources and citations, zero cost

is a free alternative to Westlaw or LexisNexis for legal research. In-house legal teams looking for cost savings can experience powerful research capabilities and a satisfying user experience, without the cost barrier of some higher-priced tools.

Cite Case Law, Legislation, and Guidance Notes

Looking for insights on precedent case law? Get instant summarization of case outcomes and linked court opinions.

Interested in a particular piece of legislation? Get concise breakdowns of relevant statutes and regulations, complete with source links for deeper analysis.

Staying up to date with the latest legal trends? Scan guidance notes with recent legal updates relevant to your practice area and jurisdiction.

Easy workflow integration

The legal assistant interface is intuitive and simple to use. It's built with user autonomy in mind - no learning curve or login required.

is designed for secure, fast access — no storage of client data, with best-practice encryption and data protection.

There are other alternatives to Westlaw or LexisNexis, like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and CoCounsel. Learn more about the benefits of each tool below.

How to use ChatGPT for legal research

ChatGPT is a powerful generative AI tool that can help you brainstorm or draft, but lacks legal source grounding. Here are some ways that ChatGPT can help in-house teams with legal research:

• Use ChatGPT to explore unfamiliar areas of law in plain English
• Ask ChatGPT to generate first drafts of contracts or letters
• Rewrite clauses or articles with ChatGPT for better readability

However, ChatGPT lacks access to up-to-date legal databases, case citations, and jurisdiction-specific precedent, so it’s best used as a starting point, not a source of authoritative legal information. Generative AI can produce hallucination problems, so always check outputs against primary sources for compliance and accuracy.

How to use Microsoft Copilot for legal research

Copilot is integrated with Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams. Here's how Microsoft Copilot can support in-house legal professionals:

• Draft and summarize documents in Word
• Use Copilot to pull key contract terms from long documents
• Ask Copilot to automate document formatting

Copilot is not built specifically for legal research, but works well when paired with other tools like .

How to use CoCounsel for legal research

CoCounsel is a purpose-built legal AI assistant interface using generative AI, fine-tuned with legal-specific training data and human feedback. Use cases for in-house legal teams include:

• Conduct case law research with CoCounsel
• Ask CoCounsel to help with legal memo drafting
• Use CoCounsel to automate contract review

CoCounsel is a popular choice among law firms and corporate legal departments.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Legal Research

How do I determine which research platform is best for my needs?
Consider factors like cost, integration into your tools, language models used, and relevance to your practice areas. Why not compare legal AI tools to find the best fit for you?

If you're looking for a fast, secure, and scalable option for in-house use, offers powerful AI research capabilities for free.

How can I ensure my research is comprehensive and up-to-date?
Use multiple sources, set alerts, and adopt tools with built-in summarization and cross-jurisdictional tracking. AI tools can flag updates and reduce time spent on manual checks.

When should I use AI tools versus traditional methods?
Use AI for brainstorming, document analysis and summarization, and case management insights. Use traditional tools for final checks, complex litigation research, or when drafting high-risk documents where client confidentiality is key.

How do I properly cite sources in legal documents?
Always follow the citation standards required in your jurisdiction, such as the Bluebook for U.S. legal writing or OSCOLA in the UK. Make sure that all references to statutes, regulations, and case law are accurate, current, and include the correct court, year, and pinpoint citation where applicable.

How do I cite AI legal tools? Can I cite ChatGPT?
You can cite AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini by including the prompt, date of access, and version (e.g., “ChatGPT-4, accessed June 2025”) in a footnote or appendix. However, because generative AI tools do not reference specific statutes, case law, or jurisdiction-specific precedent, they should not be used as authoritative legal sources.

What are the most cost-effective strategies for in-house legal teams?
Use a hybrid model: rely on public sources and affordable AI tools for research, and use premium tools only when needed. This maintains high efficiency without high overhead, resulting in cost savings.

How can I improve my legal research skills?
Stay updated on legal tech, understand your research databases, and build workflows around both AI and traditional search. Developing technology competence and adaptability is now part of modern legal ethics in many countries.

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Try AI-Powered Legal Research for Free

✅ Powered by generative AI and machine learning
✅ Focused on contract review, compliance, and case exploration
✅ Built-in encryption and privacy-first design
✅ Instant answers, real statutes, and court precedent — no login required

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Not legal advice: ����ֱ�� does not provide or offer formal legal, financial or other advice. You should not rely on any of its services or deliverables as formal legal advice. ����ֱ�� does not accept any liability to any person who does rely on the content of the services or deliverables as formal legal advice.