Do Not Talk about Elon Musk! Doing Legal Research at a Professional Postgraduate Program

Abstract

Discussion about “professional” stricto sensu graduate programs is relatively recent in Brazil. The first legal program of its kind, a master’s degree, was implemented at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV DIREITO SP) in 2013. Despite having faced some resistance at the beginning, programs of this type are now part of our legal academic scene: there are currently 22 professional programs in Brazil and the possibility of a professional doctorate degree in law is under consideration. In this context, it is important to discuss legal research in these professional programs, in order to delimit it and contribute to its improvement. This article aims to do that: based on the experience of nearly a decade of FGV’s program, it aims to identify common problems in research projects and final papers presented to the program, pointing out their possible causes and discussing ways to avoid them. Two major problems were identified: the lack of mastery of research methodology and the lack of knowledge about the role of legal research in the broader context of the human sciences. As a result of the first one, the following problems were identified: (i) the broadness of themes, (ii) the misuse of sources and (iii) a mismatch in expectations; as a result of the second major problem, three vices were identified: (iv) theoretical syncretism, (v) legal essentialism, and (vi) reverentialism.