A threshold issue for cross-disciplinary and intersectional legal research is the question of research methodology. From its establishment, the Legal Intersections Research Centre has aimed to facilitate self-conscious examination of the legal research enterprise, encouraging law-related researchers and scholars to critically assess the range of available research methodologies - from 'conventional' legal doctrinal analysis to methods of empirical data collection and analysis drawn from other disciplines.
Core legal skills have traditionally been perceived to involve the discovery and explication of law (what the law is; doctrinal analysis), particularly in areas where the law is built on case by case decision-making by courts rather than being set out in legislation enacted by Parliament. Increasingly, however, higher courts are using policy arguments to justify decisions rather than relying strictly on precedent. It is impossible to avoid a discussion of policy in the context of legislation, which is increasingly colonising areas where the law has been traditionally judge-made.
One reaction from legal academics dissatisfied with the expository tradition was to argue that law needed to be taught and studied in its social and economic context, the so-called 'law in context' or 'law in society' approach or, in a slightly narrower form, socio-legal studies. This has been flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of perspectives. The unifying features were an interest in the historical and socio-economic origins and development of legal doctrine and the impact of law and legal processes in the community, as distinct from the law as it appeared in legal texts (case law and legislation). This has inevitably led to legal academics drawing on the theoretical perspectives and empirical material of other disciplines, such as sociology, economics, history, psychology, philosophy and political science, with a view to enhancing their understanding of law. Others took the further step of borrowing research methodologies from these other disciplines, and engaging in empirical research themselves. Much of the early empirical work focused on the enforcement practices of the police and other agencies, the extent to which there were unmet needs for legal services in the community, and accident compensation.
The wide gaps which frequently became apparent between the law in theory and the law in practice inevitably led to consideration of law reform. Law reform is now increasingly seen to be an aspect of policy development, particularly in newer areas of statutory law, such as environmental law and family law. From the lawyer's perspective, law reform has generally rested on the assumption that legal responses are central to the resolution of social problems. More recently, however, economists and some legal sceptics have begun to emphasise the limits of legal instruments in achieving behavioural change, and have begun to investigate the alternatives, particularly economic instruments as potential alternatives to legal regulation. In practice, however, economic instruments have turned out to be intimately related to legal instruments.
While lawyers do not have any particular expertise in policy development, they can legitimately lay claim to some understanding of the potential and limitations of law and legal processes as instruments for achieving policy objectives. However, the fundamental issue of what role legal regulation, as distinct from other policy instruments (eg education), can play in influencing social behaviour, demands the use of research techniques which go considerably beyond those found within the expository tradition.
The above discussion assumes that legal research increasingly has a policy/law reform dimension. There are of course other traditions in legal research, which involve a critique of law in the books other than in terms of its accuracy, but which at the same time do not adopt a short-term policy stance. This covers analyses and critiques from the perspectives of philosophy, social theory, cultural studies and political theory.
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