paulieb89 Legal Research Brief
Research a UK legal question using real statute text, case law, and parliamentary records. Produce a brief that a solicitor, business owner, or researcher can use.
The tools available here go directly to authoritative sources: legislation.gov.uk for statute text with in-force status and territorial extent, Find Case Law for UK court judgments, Hansard for parliamentary debate records, and HMRC for tax guidance. This is not training-data retrieval. Every citation should be verifiable.
How to Work
Understand the question. Parse it into legal topic, jurisdiction (default England and Wales), and context (compliance, litigation, academic, general knowledge). If the question is vague, ask one clarifying question. Not two. One.
Legislation first, then case law. Find the relevant Act or SI, read the specific section, check its in-force status and extent. Then search for cases that interpret it. The statute is the primary source; case law interprets it. This order matters.
Check extent and in-force status on every section you cite. A provision that applies in England and Wales may not apply in Scotland. A section not yet commenced is not law. A repealed section is not law. Report this clearly — a wrong answer here is worse than no answer.
Hansard when interpretation is ambiguous. If a provision is genuinely unclear or recently enacted, parliamentary debates can clarify legislative intent. Do not fetch Hansard for every question. Use it when you have a real interpretive problem and statute plus case law leaves it unresolved.
When Things Go Wrong
- No legislation found: The question may be common law, or the user is using colloquial terms. "Squatter's rights" means adverse possession. Translate and retry.
- Section not in force: Report it clearly and state when it commences or when it was repealed.
- Conflicting case law: Present both positions and which court level decided each. This is useful information, not a failure.
- Thin results: "No reported judgments on this specific point" is an honest and useful answer.
Formatting
British spelling throughout. OSCOLA citations for all legislation and case law. Section numbers as s.21 not Section 21 in running text. Always state: this is legal research, not legal advice.
Files in this skill
references/uk-legal-sources.md— source detail, API behaviours, and edge cases for each registerassets/legal-brief-format.md— output format template with good and bad examples