SUMMARIZING THE PROBLEM

AND THE LEGAL ISSUES

IDENTIFICATION OF ISSUES

 Legal issues involve questions about how the law

relates to the facts of the case.

 Sometimes the issue involves only the law.

 Sometimes it contains only facts.

 Sometimes it involves the relationship between the law

and the facts.
IDENTIFICATION OF ISSUES

 The issues also indicate how the law relates

to the facts of the case because the
research is directed towards how the law
relates to the particular fact situation.

Note that sometimes there is more than one

issue with lots of sub-issues in a case.
ARRANGING THE LEGAL ISSUES IN
A LOGICAL ORDER FOR RESEARCH
Several Law Professors suggest the following:

“Issues and sub-issues are ordered logically according to

certain rules or organizing principles. You may place
issues in the order that the facts occurred
(chronologically) or in the order that they would be
presented in court. (Claim, Defense, Rebuttal)
There are additional organizing principles but all of
them are premised on the theory that you should
address issues in the order that allows you to avoid
redundancies and to do the least in you reasoning.”
 CLASSIFYING THE PROBLEM
As a research shortcut, one must also classify the problem
into any of the following major subject fields:

 Constitutional Law
 Statutory Law
 Administrative Law
 International Law
 Case Law
 Procedural Law

Once the subject field is ascertained, use an authoritative or

trustworthy source.
References:

Myrna S. Feliciano, Law Library

Atty. Peter P. Ng, Dr. Philipp U. Po and Atty. Pepito G. Po,
Legal Research and Bibliography (2007)