Researching the law is something that anyone can do, and in some cases it is something that you might prefer to do yourself. These days, you hear a lot about how the middle class can no longer afford lawyers. Non-lawyers can and do appear for themselves in court. However, there are times when you may wish to do a little legal research for yourself, and this article will give you some ideas about when that will be a good idea. A visit to the law library Take a trip to your local law library sometime.
Most courthouses have a law library that is run by the county government and is open to the public.
It can be quite daunting, looking at those thousands upon thousands of books, but it needn't be. Lawyers tend to use CD-ROM texts because they are take up less space than a set of books, and because lawyers can cut and paste portions of the text into their legal briefs. But hard-copy books will be easier for you to use. You may be tempted to go online instead, since an increasing number of legal resources are online, but enough things are missing online that it's dangerous to use online resources unless you are already quite familiar with the subject. If you look through your local public lending library, you will find that it has some of the same legal texts as a law library.