No legal action can be trusted as sound without legal research. Knowing this fact is one of the keys to success that define great legal and legislative initiatives against those that lose votes or fall down in litigation. While there are many aspects to legal success, law research can be the most straight forward rout to better ensuring that favorable outcome.
Legislative research includes all documents that are created by Congress as a bill goes through the process of introduction and eventual ratification. As such legislative research necessarily includes the inquiry into federal statures and regulations as a necessary window into, or access point through which a fuller process and intent may be revealed. While this research, in so far as it is maintained within public record, can be accessed by most anyone, this legal research is most often used by attorneys and courts. This research applied to a court case, or decision, can be used to clarify ambiguity and help to define intent, or even the penumbra of a law.
Due to the federal versus state split of the United States government, these same practices of law research can be applied to states as well. For instance California will have its own set of laws created by the California legislative branch. As many states do, there are california legislative intent services. These services can help find legislative intent based on the location and analysis of pertinent legislative documents.
Why are there California statutory history services, when lawyers and legal aids have the ability to search public records to trace statutory intent?
The simple answer to that question is time. Not only is most legal terminology derived from French and Latin and therefore may be less than familiar to a legal assistant, but searching through documents to conduct legislative research is time consuming. When cases are set to time constraints and legislators are put on deadlines, time is a constant enemy. According to research at Statistic Brain, the United States hosts 512,000 federal court tort cases each year. Meanwhile, that number represent only 2% of tort claims that are filed. Knowing legal duty through legislative research can help substantiate claims. This makes having teams at services such as these available for the legislative research needs an invaluable asset to many different law councils.
When your legal future and reputation are on the line, you want to be certain that you have access to the best legal research possible. Look to for research services that have large collections of U.S. legislative history materials. Also, seek out a service with an experienced research staff that knows both the law and how to find adjacent materials. Finally, look for a service that has a top notch reputation. This will likely mean that these services have been used at various levels of courts and administrative agencies.
