Legal Research Group (LRG)
A Legal Research Group (LRG) is a group of law students and/or young lawyers carrying out research on a specific topic of law with the aim to make their conclusions publicly accessible.
Legal Research Groups can be:
Unilateral: Conducted in one ELSA group;
Bilateral: Conducted as a cooperation between two ELSA groups;
Multilateral: Conducted as cooperation between three or more ELSA groups;
International: Conducted by ELSA International in cooperation with an academic partner.
Why should you organise an LRG?
Legal Research experience is highly valued by recruiters and academics. There are many benefits for both participants and organisers, if your Local/National Group decides to organise an LRG:
Participants can develop their research skills, legal writing skills and teamwork skills;
LRG is a valid publication, which is recognised in a professional environment and all participants can get an official certificate;
LRG can be done remotely and costs of organisation are practically non-existent;
Organising a bilateral or multilateral LRG is a perfect opportunity to pair up with another ELSA Group and bring the international spirit to your university;
Ideal for partnering up with universities or other institutions.
How to conduct an LRG?
1. Choose the topic
2. Set the goals for your LRG (what do you want to achieve with the LRG on a certain topic?)
3. Structure - do you want to organise an LRG that is open only for your Local/National Group members? Do you want to partner up with another LG/NG and organise a bilateral LRG? Or, maybe, you want to pair up with several different ELSA Groups and organise a multilateral LRG (e.g. Nordic LRG)?
4. Set up the coordination team
5. Set up the timeline
6. Find the Academic Partner or set up the Academic Board
7. Prepare the Academic Framework, Guidelines and other Research documents
8. Launch the LRG - open the call for researchers and editors for your LRG Research Team
9. Research period - set the period for your researchers. Make sure that you as a Coordinator (or a National Coordinator in the case of bilateral/multilateral LRG) set some internal deadlines and avoid last-minute surprises.
10. Review - we suggest having a first round of review after the first draft of the report, after which you can send back the reports to the respective groups and ask them to implement the feedback.
11. Publication - your LRG should be published. It can be published as a pdf document on your website, or by a professional publisher. Your LRG can also be published in the LRG library.
12. Follow up - once your LRG is published, you would probably like to show it to the world - find events where you can present your report.
For more information about LRG, please consult the LRG Handbook and LRG package available at the Officers Portal. If you have any questions or you simply want to discuss the possibility of organising an LRG, feel free to reach us out via director.publications@elsa.org.