In the workshop, participants learn the conventional features of academic legal writing, research and refine their topics, write and comment on each other on first and second drafts, and complete a final version of their work. The faculty member leading the workshop will also provide feedback and, depending on the topic of each participant`s work, facilitate the presentation to other professors who may be helpful. The Legal Theory research area is one of the teaching and research highlights of Edinburgh Law School. The research area is responsible for two of the core mainstream classes (critical legal thinking and jurisprudence) and a number of honours- and master`s level courses, and has a vibrant postgraduate research community. The subject underpins all specific areas of law, providing new law students with a solid foundation in the English legal system. At the beginning, it is necessary to explain a theory or theoretical framework. In its most basic form, a theory can be described as a coherent representation of a particular phenomenon or aspect of the world. Typically, a theory specifies certain relationships between the objects that make up a phenomenon or between a phenomenon and its environment. For example, we could say that an educational theory accounts for how a student learns and specifies the influence of teachers, learning activities, and other students on the learning process. To build a theory, it is necessary to define its basic concepts and explain how these concepts relate to each other. Basically, a theory is a representation of something developed jointly or sequentially by one or more researchers and thus itself a construction of the theorist`s mind. There is an understandable tendency to see theories as abstract entities removed from our social reality.

However, it is important to note that the abstraction of theories is highly variable: a theory of law can be as abstract as H.L.A. Hart`s presentation of the legal system as a combination of primary and secondary rules, and as concrete as the theory that causality in the context of tort law means a sine qua non. In the context of case law, theoretical frameworks are often not addressed, and if so, in the context of methodological discussions.3x For the Dutch context, see IJzermans 2015 for references and as one of the few sustained attempts to develop this. As a rule, research is motivated by current developments in doctrinal debate or legal practice, and the fact that there is a problem in the current state of positive law is sufficient justification for research. This has led some scholars to argue that the (implicit) theoretical framework of jurisprudence is the current legal system itself (Westerman 2011). Others argue that the theoretical framework is broader, i.e. it must include a perspective on the legal system (Vranken 2011). I will come back to this point in the next section.

How the role and character of the theoretical framework is described depends on the characterization of the discipline of the jurisprudence and thus reflects debates about the character of the discipline (Van Hoecke 2011, p. 3; Vranken 2011, pp. 117-118). In the academic discipline of law, discussion of theoretical frameworks in the context of methodological teaching is rare or very limited.4x This is part of a larger problem of the lack of methodological manuals that provide practical instructions on legal doctrinal research. Books on legal methods in English tend to be practice-oriented (e.g., McLeod 2005), while academic methodological books pay more attention to social law research than to doctrinal research (e.g., McConville and Chui 2007). The situation is different in the social sciences, where a theoretical framework is a standard element in research teaching (e.g. Maxwell 2013; Babbie, 2013). Therefore, the following general discussion is based on the results of the social sciences, which I also consider relevant to legal research. At the end of the section and in the next section, I will move on to the details of the legal research framework. In the context of research design, theories can have different roles, all related to the starting point or context of the research project. Since theories can be seen as a complete starting point for research and thus as a framework for a project, I will use the term „theoretical framework“ and not just „theory“ to emphasize their role in a methodological framework.

There are several reasons why a discussion of a theoretical framework can be incorporated into one`s own research, and I will highlight three. The first, and perhaps most important, objective of incorporating a theoretical framework is to integrate this research project into the prior art. This means that a description of the theoretical framework shows how the project relates to the work of others. The easiest way to do this is to describe previous research on the same topic. For example, when it comes to using legislative intent as a method of constitutional interpretation, it is useful to describe the existing debate about originalism in constitutional interpretation (Barber & Fleming, 2007). With the help of this example, it is possible to further clarify the idea of describing the prior art: it is a representation of the debate between different points of view on the subject. It is not only a list of what has been done before, but also a report on how these different views and conclusions are related. While there is a clear majority of opinion on a topic in some areas, in most legal research there are competing viewpoints that provide opposing theories. This first objective, to anchor the work in the state of the art, can go further than the discussion of a theoretical framework; Strictly speaking, the state of the art does not always have to concern the theoretical foundations of the project, but may also concern previous results or research methods. In many research textbooks, this objective is therefore considered to be fulfilled by a literature review (Blumberg et al., 2008; Randolph, 2009). However, part of such a literature review will usually be devoted to relating the topic to theories in the field. In this sense, a theoretical framework cannot simply be a representation of the state of the art, since the theoretical framework must specify exactly how the project itself relates to previous work.

This leads to the second objective of discussing a theoretical framework: it clarifies the scientific tradition associated with a project. A scientific tradition is understood here in a broad sense: it may be the usual type of research in an academic field or discipline, or it may be a certain theoretical or ideological approach to the subject. The link with a particular approach is particularly important in academic fields characterized by deep-rooted pluralism. For example, in international relations, there is a long-standing debate between realism, liberalism, critical theory and constructivism (Burchill & Linklater 2013). In such an area, it is particularly necessary to reflect on the approach to which to adapt. Going back to the example of Parliament`s intentions, there are several ways to approach the issue of constitutional interpretation. It is possible to discuss methods of constitutional interpretation as a matter of constitutional law, focusing on the application of these methods in constitutional affairs and their relation to constitutional doctrines, or as a form of legal philosophy, emphasizing the theory of legislative intent and the (im)possibility of revealing it, or as a form of legal argumentation, Focus on the mechanisms of (re)construction of the legislator`s intentions. An important objective of the theoretical framework is to clarify how a project relates to one or more scientific traditions. If there is a broad consensus in the field in question, the state of the art and scientific tradition may coincide, but more often, as already mentioned, a certain approach must be chosen.