3.5 KNOWINGWHEN TOSTOP
Most lawyers have a hard time ending their research, perhaps because they don’t want to start writing. Researching is fun, and you don’t have to make any hard decisions; if you think a case or other authority may be useful, you save it or print it and keep on going.
Of course, saving and printing are not research; you must actually read and analyze the sources you have found. For some writers, research is like dating and writing is like marriage: With research, you hope that if you keep looking, you’ll find the perfect match right around the next corner. With writing, you just have to take what you’ve got and try to work it out.Accordingly, when doing your research, you should consciously decide when to stop. No matter how diligent your research, your writing will probably reveal some gaps that need to be filled. Don’t try to fill those gaps before you start writing. Instead, let the writing reveal the gaps to you and help to direct your follow-up research. Think in terms of a partial stop and a full stop. You should come to a partial stop when you have followed a good research plan, you have updated your authorities,40and you are not finding anything new — you keep encountering again and again those almost-relevant cases that you’ve rejected once or twice before.
You can come to a partial stop when you have achieved four goals: (1) you understand the general area of law and how the relevant courts apply it in cases similar to your client’s case; (2) you understand whether your jurisdiction is in the mainstream or is an outlier as to the relevant legal issues; (3) you have found the most recent cases that address the issue in any way from (a) the court of last resort in your jurisdiction, and (b) any court in your jurisdiction; and (4) if appropriate, you have identified relevant cases or other sources from nonmandatory courts or jurisdictions.
As you review these authorities and begin to outline and write your argument, you may decide that some of them are not worth citing. The process of reading and analyzing them, however, can help you to understand your case and to identify valid arguments. Conversely, as you write, you may discover new avenues that you wish to explore, and you can make tactical research strikes to grab cases or other authorities to support the points that come up. Some writers continue these tactical strikes until they are stopped by an outside force: a court-imposed due date.