This topic's most-referenced foundational methods, in the order they were developed — a place to start if you're new here.
I
Comparative Legal AnalysisLate 19th century; formalised 1900by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (early conceptualisation); Raymond Saleilles and Édouard Lambert (modern discipline, 1900 Paris Congress)
II
Legal Content Analysis1940s–1970s (applied systematically to legal texts)by Interdisciplinary; foundational content analysis by Harold Lasswell (1940s); applied to legal texts by empirical legal scholars from the 1970s onward
III
Comparative Doctrinal Legal Research19th century origins; modern systematic form 1960s–1998by Rooted in classical comparative law (Anselm von Feuerbach, early 19th c.); systematised by Zweigert & Kötz (1998)
IV
Longitudinal comparative legal analysisLate 20th century (comparative law foundational texts 1960s–1998; longitudinal integration from 1990s onward)by Konrad Zweigert and Hein Kotz (comparative law foundation); longitudinal dimension integrated in socio-legal and legal history scholarship
V
Critical Case Law AnalysisLate 1970s–1980s (CLS conference 1977; Unger 1983)by Critical Legal Studies (CLS) movement; key figures include Duncan Kennedy, Roberto Unger, Mark Tushnet
VI
Critical Doctrinal Legal Research1970s–1980s (Critical Legal Studies movement; applied to doctrinal method from 1980s onward)by Synthesized from Traditional Doctrinal Legal Research and Critical Legal Studies (Roberto Unger, Duncan Kennedy, and others)
VII
Evaluation-focused legal content analysisLate 20th century; evaluation-focused applications emerged prominently from the 1990s onwardby Builds on Klaus Krippendorff's content analysis framework and legal scholarship traditions
VIII
Case Law AnalysisMedieval English common law; academic formalisation 19th–20th centuryby Common law tradition (England); systematised in Anglo-American jurisprudence