Review of emergency room pain management procedures reveals that all demographic groups experience inconsistent and inadequate pain care. The lack of educational emphasis on pain management practises in nursing and medical school curricula and postgraduate training programmes, the lack of adequate or nonexistent clinical quality management programmes, the lack of rigorous studies of populations with special needs that improve pain management, and other factors all appear to contribute to this inconsistency and inadequacy. The literature that discusses the incidence and causes of oligoanalgesia in emergency care is reviewed in this article. Additionally, it talks about the regulatory initiatives taken to address the issue and how those initiatives have affected attitudes among lawyers.