Essay Legal Research Report – The Analysis of a Court Judgment – Law Assignment Help

Assignment Task

Legal Research Report
For your third and final assignment in this subject, you are asked to research and report on a legal issue related to your Masters’ degree in Events.. It can be closely related or it can be a more general business law issue relevant to all managers.
You will conduct legal research relevant to an issue facing your industry and write a report which sets out the practical problem, the key legal/regulatory issues and the underpinning policy context.  The research area must be related to one or more of the legal topics covered in this subject and can build on the topic explored in your first Assessment.  You should use critical analysis to assess the legal arguments and discuss the likely or actual legal outcome and the managerial implications.

Topic choice
The Assessment enables you to explore a topic relevant to your personal career interests and experience. However, the topic must be linked to at least one of the areas of law covered in the subject e.g. legal process, legal business structures, licensing and compliance, contract law, negligence, consumer protection, privacy law, intellectual property, soft law…

Important: If you are struggling to choose a topic, or are not sure if it is appropriate, please consult your tutor.
Some of you will have an idea immediately and others may take longer to choose a topic. There are many different starting points:

Assessment – (the analysis of a court judgment) may give you an area to build upon (but you don’t have to link the two assessments).
Lectures are also designed to give you ideas about how the core legal topics covered in the subject relate to events, sports and not-for-profits.
Newspapers/media coverage: you will find many legal issues are raised in the media so do read/watch the news regularly – get the ABC news app on your phone. You may see an article on possible regulatory reform or a court case that you find interesting. Recent examples: liquor licencing and the lock-out laws in Sydney; special licences for music festivals, the Israel Folau case; sport governance scandals e.g. prosecution of Tennis Australia directors; retailer Oscar Wylee’s false claims about its charitable activities; the Dreamworld disaster.
Your work experience: you may have legal issues that have arisen at work that you wish to investigate further.

Research question/approach
All research needs a purpose. What is it that you are trying to find out? The best way to give focus to your research report is to decide upon a research question (or questions) and then provide answers. To answer most legal questions, you will need to look at both facts and law (as you did in Assessment 1).
Going back to the examples above your initial question could be:
Why were the liquor licencing laws altered in Sydney? OR What were the legal consequences of the Dreamworld disaster?
As you progress, you will ask yourself further questions that enable some personal reflection and critical analysis of the topic:
Are the liquor licencing reforms effective? OR Should penalties for gross negligence be stricter?
So, for the liquor licencing example, you might set out the facts surrounding the antisocial behaviour and crime that was blamed on liquor consumption. Then you set out what the law was before and after the reforms. Then you analyse whether you, personally, think the reforms were effective or not, how they impact business and perhaps what you think might be an alternative solution.
For the Dreamworld example, you’d need to set out the facts of what happened. Then you outline the relevant law – the causes of action that have enabled court cases. You can summarise any court decisions, then analyse how they impact on business and whether you think it the law is effective. Is it enough to prevent future similar disasters?

Important: If you choose a topic that focuses on a court case, your research report needs to be more than just another case-analysis. You will need to expand to compare and contrast with other similar cases. Perhaps look into the policy context or the reasoning behind the legal provisions.

Report Structure
You can see that there is a fairly simple structure behind a legal research report:

Assessment – Research Report structure
Research questions and introduction What are you trying to find out? You can also explain your interest in the topic
Facts The practical problem that society is trying to solve – what happened to trigger new legislation/regulation or a court case?
Law The law relevant to the issue – this could be regulatory reform or legal principles that provide a cause of action (the right to bring a court case). It could be international law or soft law standards

Analysis – This is where you place the law and its outcomes in a business/management context to analyse the implications for management practice
Personal reflection Critical analysis involves a level of original personal reflection – what do you think about the way the law functions – is it effective, do you agree with the outcomes? Is it ethical and fair?

Conclusion – Brief conclusion which might also contain recommendations or ideas for legal or policy reform

Other ideas
The examples above deal with legislative reform (liquor licencing) and enforcement of the law through the courts (Dreamworld). Other approaches are possible:
For students interested in a particular regulatory topic (e.g. anti-doping or data protection) the report could take a system-mapping approach – researching the development and/or integration of international law, national law, soft law and possibly also private/contract law.
For students interested in consequences, the report could focus on enforcement of law in a broader sense – researching the outcomes of cases or enforcement actions (e.g. size of fines or length of jail sentences) perhaps focusing on the role of a particular regulator (ASIC, ACNC, ACCC etc)
For students with an international perspective: the report could take a comparative approach – analysing differences and similarities between law and policy in your home country with that in Australia. However, please make sure that the research sources are in English.
For all topics remember to keep asking the question Why? Critically analyse your findings – why do you think things are the way they are? Has the law found the right balance in your opinion?