Subject Guides: LAW: HOME

Key Resources

British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII)
Access to freely available British and Irish case law & legislation, European Union case law, Law Commission reports, and other British and Irish material. Useful for finding neutral citations and transcripts of more recent cases and often for those not reported in any major law report series.
Find Case Law
National Archives service providing access to court judgments from the England and Wales High Court, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court and tribunal decisions from the Upper Tribunals. Especially useful for very recent cases. (Still in early stages of development).
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The initial collection of judgments and decisions totals to around 50,000 documents that date back to 2003 for Court Judgments, and to 2016 for Tribunal Decisions.

The collection includes:

All judgments and tribunal decisions from the Upper Tribunals, High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court from 19 April 2022
Judgments and decisions provided by BAILII, that have been published under its contract with Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS)/Ministry of Justice (MoJ)
Judgments provided directly by the Supreme Court and the Upper Tribunals

To widen the coverage of the service, we have bought digital copies of other judgments and decisions. We are currently working through these judgments and decisions to get them ready for publication and expand our collection.

Initially only judgments and decisions with neutral citations will be available. We are working to assign identifiers to judgments and decisions without neutral citations.

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Full text collection of law and law related journals; also includes the English Reports 1220-1867, World Constitutions Illustrated, and US law reports and treaties. Content is a combination of current and historic sources.
Lexis+ UK This link opens in a new window
Full text access to cases, legislation, Halsbury's Laws, legal journals and UK newspapers, some from 1984.
Practical Law This link opens in a new window
A legal know how service that provides peer reviewed resources, such as practice notes, current awareness and standard documents. Registration required if not already registered for Westlaw.

UK Legislation
Freely available government website containing all legislation from 1988, including both original and revised versions, plus most pre 1988 legislation.

UK Parliamentary Papers (UKPP) This link opens in a new window
House of Commons sessional papers from 1715 to 2005 with supplementary material back to 1688.
Westlaw This link opens in a new window
Full text database covering legislation, cases, legal journals and selected books; browse by topic for an overview with analysis and links to key related content. Coverage includes US and other international jurisdictions.
Registration required if not already registered for Practical Law.

WorldLII - World Legal Information Institute
Free, independent and non-profit access to worldwide law, covering 123 jurisdictions.

Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations
Comprehensive index of abbreviations for legal publications, from the British Isles, the Commonwealth and the United States, including those covering international and comparative law. Search the index either by abbreviation, title, or words appearing in the title.
Current awareness
Current Awareness is a blog from the Inner Temple Library providing up-to-date information on new case law, changes in legislation and legal news from England and Wales.
Eagle-i Internet Portal for Law
Developed by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies: provides description and evaluation of, and links to, selected high quality and authentic online legal information sources. Coverage includes: UK, European, Foreign, Comparative and International law.
Lawbore
Comprehensive law portal, compiled by City University, offering links to key websites, blogs and documents by topic, multimedia tutorials to develop legal skills and careers advice.

APA PsycInfo This link opens in a new window
Index and summaries of peer-reviewed literature in behavioural science and mental health, from 1800s onwards.
Policing Insight This link opens in a new window
Expert articles from government, policing professionals, academia, third sector and industry from around the world on policing and criminal justice topics including policy, practice, crime and technology. Includes access to the Media Monitor service.Registration required.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Multi-disciplinary abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings.
Web of Science (WOS) This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary database with good criminology coverage

Books and ebooks

The easiest way to search for books held in the library is to use the library catalogue. You can search by author, title or keyword. You can also use the library catalogue to place reservations on books. For more information about finding and using ebooks please see our Help with using ebooks page.