LLAW6259 Chap.7 Finding the Law: Sources and Research Routes
Finding the Law: Sources and Research Routes
Research is a procedure with a record
The two practical points the course opens with are unglamorous and decide everything that follows. Log every search while you are doing it, noting where you looked, what terms you used and what came back. And keep a copy of everything you find, whether a case, an Ordinance or a piece of commentary.
The record stops you repeating searches, which is where most wasted research time goes, and it lets you say exactly where you looked when someone asks whether you looked.
Saving matters because the version you have is the version you read, whereas a document found again may have been updated in between.
Primary and secondary are roles, not rankings of quality
Primary sources are legislation, meaning Ordinances and subsidiary legislation, and cases, which both interpret legislation and supply precedent where there is none.
Secondary sources are legal encyclopaedias, practitioner texts, textbooks, journals and legal dictionaries. The course frames secondary sources with three questions: what they are, why they are useful, and what they are not. The third decides marks. A textbook statement is not authority for a proposition of law; it is an efficient way to learn an area and to find the cases, and the cases are what you cite.
An excellent textbook is still a secondary source and a poorly reasoned first instance judgment is still a primary one.
Two checks on legislation, four on a case
For legislation: ensure it is in force, and ensure it is up to date by checking amendments.
For a case: check whether it was appealed, followed, overruled or distinguished; check the level of court; check whether it is binding or persuasive; and treat overseas authorities as a category needing its own justification. Those checks are quick and they prevent the two research failures that reach a marker, which are relying on a provision that has been amended and relying on a case that has been overturned.
Where the section was amended after the case was decided, both checks combine: the case may be construing words that no longer exist.
One question, several routes, and why you take more than one
The course demonstrates research by putting a single short problem to several routes: a case search on primary sources by key words, a practitioner text and then its footnotes, a legal encyclopaedia, free online sources, and artificial intelligence, which it treats as a route with named problems including privacy, hallucinations and your own responsibility for the output.
Worked properly the exercise ends with legislation found, cases interpreting it found, commentary found, further cases found, those cases checked for later treatment, an answer reached, the same question researched in more than one way, and an introduction to journals.
Routes converging is corroboration; routes disagreeing is the signal to keep going. The approach the course names is to be creative, trying different key words and different secondary sources, and to be persistent, because concluding from one empty search that there is no law on the point is a strong claim on thin evidence.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Why the search record is part of the work rather than housekeeping
- 02
Primary and secondary sources, and what secondary sources are not
- 03
Where Hong Kong bills, Ordinances, law reform reports and Hansard live
- 04
Where Hong Kong and English case law can be found
- 05
Five families of secondary source and what each is good for
- 06
Two currency checks on legislation and four on a case
- 07
One question taken down several routes, and what convergence proves
- 08
Artificial intelligence as a research route, against the rule for this assessment
Take one question from a blank page to a provision
- 2Say why you search legislation before case law, and what you record.
- 3State the effect of the provision you reach on the contractor's submission.
- 1Say what you check next inside the provision itself.
- 2Name the second and third routes and what each adds.
Key terms
- Primary Source
- Legislation or a case: the law itself, and the only kind of material you cite for a proposition of law.
- Secondary Source
- Commentary about the law, such as an encyclopaedia, practitioner text, textbook, journal article or dictionary. Useful for finding the law and not for proving it.
- Practitioner Text
- A detailed work written for practising lawyers, usually issued with supplements that must be checked because the main volume ages.
- Legal Encyclopaedia
- A work giving the shape of an area quickly together with a list of the authorities, used as an entry point rather than as authority.
- Search Record
- A note of the source, the search words and the results for each search, kept as the work is done rather than reconstructed afterwards.
- Hallucination
- An output that presents a fabricated authority as a real one. It is a research problem rather than an accuracy problem, because a fabricated citation is undetectable to a trusting reader.
Finding the Law: Sources and Research Routes FAQ
What is the difference between a primary and a secondary source?
A primary source is the law itself: an Ordinance, subsidiary legislation, or a case, whether it interprets legislation or supplies precedent where there is none. A secondary source is commentary about the law. The distinction is about role rather than quality, so an excellent textbook is secondary and a weak first instance judgment is primary.
You use secondary sources to learn an area quickly and to find the authorities, and you cite the authorities.
What should I check before relying on a case I have found?
Four things. Whether it has been appealed, followed, overruled or distinguished since it was decided. Which level of court decided it. Whether it is binding on the court you are writing for or merely persuasive. And, if it comes from another jurisdiction, what justifies bringing it in at all.
If the case construes a statutory provision, check the provision too: an amendment after the decision may mean the case is construing words that no longer exist.
Can I use an AI tool for the research even if I write the answer myself?
Not for this assessment. The written assessment instructions state that you must not use it at all in preparing or writing your answer, and preparing covers the research stage.
The course does discuss such tools elsewhere as something a lawyer encounters, naming privacy, hallucinations and your continuing responsibility for the output as the problems, but that discussion is not a permission and there is no documented-use exception in these instructions.
Assessment move
Pick a question from another course and research it twice, once starting from legislation and once starting from a practitioner text, keeping a written record of both routes. If the two routes reach the same provision you can rely on it; if they do not, you have found the part of the area you do not yet understand.
Working through Finding the Law: Sources and Research Routes in LLAW6259? Sia is AskSia’s AI Law tutor — ask any LLAW6259 Finding the Law: Sources and Research Routes question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how LLAW6259 is taught and assessed. Read this chapter free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.
