Systematical legal research in Indonesia has only developed in the last few years in conjunction with the implementation of the country's national law development program which is aimed at the creation of a new legal system. Efforts to develop a new and national legal system to replace the existing system inherited from the colonial period actually started as early as 1958 when the government set up the Institute for National Law Development. It is a matter of much regret that despite the good start it made and the favourable atmosphere it enjoyed, the Institute ultimately did not produce any significant results which could form the basis for a new national legal system. The deterioration of the political climate in the sixties made it impossible for the Institute to carry out its task properly.

Research in law and unrelated subjects cannot be said to have reached any considerable scale until the establishment of the Faculty of Law at the University of Malaya in 1972. Until then, the only legal research being conducted was within the confines of private legal firms and government departments. Research was necessarily restricted to an ad hoc approach of instant necessity and for immediate utilisation. Now, after more than six years, the situation has changed little except that most of the new institutions and bodies concerned have individually expanded their research activities. Any coordination of research works in law remains within the bounds of sporadic cooperative efforts between individual researchers.

Legal research traditionally has been concerned with the development or elaboration of legal doctrines, and the raw materials of such research have been statutes, administrative regulations and rulings, and court decisions. This type of research is termed as doctrinal research. Characteristically, a legal scholar undertaking doctrinal research takes one or more legal propositions as a starting point and focus of his study. Research then takes place in the law library, where the scholar tries to locate all relevant statutes, cases and all discussions of his proposition found in encyclopedias, textbooks, treatises, and legal periodicals. If the legal concept is taken from a statute, his sources would necessarily include the statute, its legislative history and, if possible, comparable statutes in other jurisdictions. He then analyzes his readings, formulates his conclusions and writes up his study in the form of a memorandum, a brief, a periodical article or a treatise.

In one sense, legal research is undertaken by those who teach, by those who practice and by those who judge. While not underestimating the importance of such research, I will focus attention on research with certain objectives: research which is published or intended for publication.

In the olden days, legal research was not a necessity. The Kings, both in the Sukothai and Ayuthaya Periods, promulgated decrees when actual disputes arose. A compilation of the royal adjudications, the Mengraisartra, was attempted by certain kings in the northern territory of Thailand and was found to be comprehensive.