China entered a new era of reform and opening up after the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1978. During the past forty years of rapid socioeconomic change and historical progress toward governing the country according to law, legal research in China has achieved unprecedented progress and prosperity. Forty years of legal research during China’s reform and opening up can be reviewed and summarized from varying perspectives, using wide-ranging approaches. This article will identify major theoretical issues and several innovative perspectives concerning legal research in China over the past forty years. It will focus on theoretical issues concerning jurisprudence, legal history, and other major areas of legal science.