The following publication provides an introduction to the operation of legislative services in parliaments, a summary of recommendations adopted at legislative services workshops, an outline of the operations of select legislative departments, and examples of different legislative opinions produced by parliamentary services. The information used for the preparation of this publication was compiled during the legislative services workshops NDI hosted in cooperation with the Slovak Parliament in 2014 in Casta-Papiernicka and in Durres, Albania in 2016 with the suport of reserach and legislative deparments from the Albanian, Bosnian, Czech, Kosovar, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Polish, Serbian, Slovak, and Slovene parliaments.