Selecting and Developing a Law Research Topic

When selecting a topic, make sure that it is interesting to you and your audience, well-defined, manageable, novel and worthy of publication. If you need help finding a research topic, you can start by: 

• Examining legal developments

• Keeping up to date with current affairs, e.g. news items can generate topic ideas

• Searching for a novel case or a legal issue where courts have split on their interpretation of the law

• Browsing recent scholarly publications

• Mining topic ideas, including calls for papers and writing competitions

• Exploring grassroots advocacy from communities and legal organisations. e.g. blogs and websites

• Talking to people

A common approach to finding a topic is to focus on a case that raises a novel issue of law. To find these cases, search for legal developments (see Legal Developments) or browse recent cases before the Australian High Court or highest appellate court in other countries.

A good place to get ideas for a paper topic is to examine recent legal developments. Even if you have a topic in mind, use the following resources to learn more about any new developments within that area. Newspapers, blogs and current awareness resources, such as the ones below, are usually the first to report on a developing issue of law.

News and newspapers

Blogs

Scholarly publications

For further links to journals and other secondary sources, refer to the Secondary Sources for Law Library Research Guide.

The following research guides have been prepared by other universities to assist their students with selecting a research topic. Please be aware that the some of the links to resources in these guides are only accessible to students of those academic institutions.