How easy is Legal Research to do for the General Public?

In simple terms, it's not simple at all for the general public to be able to do their own legal research.  The legal system has been created and then evolved in such a way that it is a minefield of exceptions and additions so that the plain laws are now open to interpretation and it takes a legal researcher who is familiar with the nuances of the law to be able to find their way through it.

There are some simple straightforward laws, especially at State level, where you can quickly do the legal research yourself.  Something like "can you get married at 15 in Colorado?" for example can be answered within minutes by finding the relevant State law online, and then confirming this with a legal professional.  However as to the grounds on which that marriage can then be dissolved and what the division of wealth, property - or debts would be, will be open to debate by the attorneys who will be paid to fight the case out as long as they can! 

There is a lot of mystery which surrounds the legal profession but although some of that is there to give the law it's holier than thou stance, much of it has developed because of a groundbreaking cases. For example, theft is theft and thieves should go to jail, unless of course there's a good reason for why they stole the items - perhaps there was an ownership issue, perhaps it was on moral grounds of starvation, or perhaps it was plain greed.  It doesn't take much legal research to say that greed is an issue upon which someone should go to jail, but would you put a starving person in jail because they stole food?  And what of the ownership issue?  This is where test cases and legal precedents come into being and it's years of those cases which have managed to twist the law into the complicated puzzle it is today. 

Although legal research isn't at all easy for members of the general public to undertake without some knowledge of how the law works and the publications and indexes which can be checked, it's more than possible to find similar situations online and to find out what the research showed in those instances and use these as a starting point.  If this fails, it might be worth employing a legal researcher to find the information for you!