เปรียบเทียบวิธี

	การวิเคราะห์คำพิพากษาคดีที่เป็นประเด็นสำคัญ	การวิเคราะห์บรรทัดฐานคำพิพากษา
สาขาวิชา	วิธีการภาคสนาม	วิธีการภาคสนาม
ตระกูล	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
ปีกำเนิด	Late 1970s–1980s (CLS conference 1977; Unger 1983)	Medieval English common law; academic formalisation 19th–20th century
ผู้ริเริ่ม	Critical Legal Studies (CLS) movement; key figures include Duncan Kennedy, Roberto Unger, Mark Tushnet	Common law tradition (England); systematised in Anglo-American jurisprudence
ประเภท	Qualitative legal research approach	Qualitative legal research method
แหล่งต้นตำรับ	Unger, R. M. (1983). The Critical Legal Studies Movement. Harvard Law Review, 96(3), 561–675.	Hutchinson, T. (2010). Researching and Writing in Law (3rd ed.). Thomson Reuters. ISBN: 9780455227689
ชื่อเรียกอื่น	critical legal analysis, CLS case analysis, critical judicial analysis, critical legal reading	judicial decision analysis, legal case analysis, jurisprudential analysis, case-based legal research
ที่เกี่ยวข้อง	6	6
สรุป	Critical case law analysis applies the theoretical tools of Critical Legal Studies (CLS) to the examination of judicial decisions. Rather than accepting legal reasoning at face value, this approach interrogates how courts construct legal arguments, whose interests those arguments serve, and how ideological commitments are concealed beneath the appearance of neutral doctrinal logic. It exposes the political and social dimensions embedded in judicial language and outcomes.	Case law analysis is a systematic method for examining judicial decisions to identify binding legal rules, evolving doctrines, and interpretive trends. Rooted in the common law tradition of stare decisis, it requires the researcher to locate the ratio decidendi — the binding reasoning — of each decision, distinguish it from obiter dicta, and trace how that reasoning has been applied, distinguished, or overruled across subsequent cases. The method is fundamental to legal scholarship, litigation strategy, and law reform research.