The Library: Law: Databases

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Key databases in Law

HeinOnline

Key legal history research tool.

Law Trove
Contains the content of over 200 law textbooks and facilitates a rounded study of law. It enables you to search and interrogate the wealth of Oxford’s textbook law collection.

Lexis Library

Large legal database containing UK, EU and international case law, legislation (up-to-date, amended versions), legal journals, commentary texts, current awareness, and news. Very good range of practitioner texts including Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents, and Halsbury's Laws.

Please visit the help pages for Lexis support. Logging in - please see this guidance for further details.

Lexis PSL

Contains a homepage for each practice area (Company Commercial, Property and Dispute Resolution) holding essential resources chosen and compiled by an expert team of solicitors and barristers. LexisPSL provides KnowHow, primary law, precedents, forms and excerpts from authoritative Butterworths commentary. Additionally, links to Lexis Library take you directly to a broader range of relevant legal resources.

Westlaw UK

Large legal database containing UK and EU case law, legislation (up to date Westlaw UK’s Journals section includes abstracts from the Legal Journals Index, vised versions), legal journals, commentary texts such as Civil Procedure (the White Book) and Law Reports such as ICLR Law Reports and Weekly Law Reports.

Westlaw International

Westlaw International is a vast global legal research library built on some of the world's best legal, news and business information.
Please visit the help pages for Westlaw International support.
Logging in - please see this guidance for further details on accessing Westlaw.

XpertHR
XpertHR offers more than 24,000 articles from the most authoritative sources in HR, along with a specially commissioned employment law reference manual, a model policies and documents service and various other services.

Please visit the help pages for XpertHR support.

Lexis Library

Large legal database containing UK, EU and international case law, legislation (up-to-date, amended versions), legal journals, commentary texts, current awareness, and news. Very good range of practitioner texts in the Commentary section including Harvey on Industrial Relations and Employment Law, Tolley's Employment Law service and Butterworths Employment Law Handbook.

BAILII

Free resource for British and Irish case law and legislation. Contains tribunal decisions from tribunals such as the Employment Appeals Tribunal.

Employment Tribunal decisions

Find decisions on employment tribunal cases in England, Wales and Scotland from February 2017 onwards.

Employment Appeal Tribunal decisions

Find decisions of appeals against employment tribunals heard by the Employment Appeal Tribunal.

Employment cases update

Site which provides free access to the full text of key employment law cases as they are published, from the Supreme court, Court of Appeal, High Court and EAT, starting from January 2010. The text is free to view and there is a free weekly newsletter.

Federation of European Employers

Association for progressive employers operating across Europe, founded in 1989. Has members in all EEA states, plus Switzerland, Czech Republic, Russia, USA, Canada, Japan and Israel. Good source of pan-European national pay, employment law and collective bargaining data on the web. Also includes legislation from the many countries it represents.

Halsbury's Laws - the major legal encyclopedia covering cases, legislation and commentary on legal topics. Available online on Lexis Library.
Words and Phrases legally defined. Available online on Lexis Library
Oxford Reference- contains many legal dictionaries, including A Dictionary of Law and A Guide to Latin in International Law
Lexis Library - search for terms in the 'Glossary' box on the search home page.
Westlaw Index of Legal Terms - from the Westlaw home page. It contains the three comprehensive and authoritative legal dictionaries; Stroud's Judicial Dictionary of Words and Phrases, Jowitt's Dictionary of English Law and Osborn's Concise Law Dictionary as well as the Statutory definitions that form part of Westlaw UK Legislation documents. All content is interlinked and cross-referenced.
Westlaw Insight - click on the topic headings on the Westlaw home page to access an online legal encyclopaedia that aims to provide a comprehensive statement of the law in the United Kingdom.

Other databases for Law

BAILII (British and Irish Legal Information Institute)

Covers UK case law, statutes, legislation, white papers, green papers, and more.
Provides access to freely available British and Irish legal materials.

Eur-Lex

Links to European cases and the Official Journal, allows you to search for legislation in force for each country and provides summaries of EU Legislation by topic area. For tips on how to use Eur-Lex check out this playlist of videos on YouTube.

Halsbury's Laws of England

Covers the whole spectrum of English law and is designed to enable practitioners to answer the full range of questions likely to arise in the course of their work. It provides a comprehensive narrative statement of the law of England and Wales, containing law derived from every source

Hansard - House of Commons

An edited record of what was said in Parliament. It also includes votes, written statements and written answers to parliamentary questions. The text of Daily Debates in the Commons is published online the following morning by 6am.

Hansard - House of Lords

An edited record of what was said in Parliament. It also includes votes, written statements and written answers to parliamentary questions. The text of Daily Debates in the Lords is published online the following morning by 6am.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers

Sessional papers including page images and searchable full text for each paper, along with detailed indexing. Collections for the 18th, 19th & 20th Centuries and Hansard 1803-2005 are available. Please visit the help pages for House of Commons Parliamentary Papers support.

Law In Sport

Sports law information resource and community. Includes peer-reviewed legal content to help users build an understanding of legal issues in sport. Special username and password needed to access this resource.

Old Bailey Online

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913 is a fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published. Contains 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.

Statista

Statistics portal, allowing you to access a wide variety of statistics, and download them as images, Powerpoint presentations or Excel spreadsheets. Includes comprehensive support information, allowing you to fully get to grips with the data and place it in context.
Please visit the help pages for Statista support.

UK Statute Law Database

Official, freely available source of revised edition of UK legislation.

Westlaw Ebook Collection (including Common Law Library)

Access to a number of Westlaw eBooks, including titles from the Common Law Library, such as Chitty on Contracts, Clerk & Lindsell on Torts and Phipson on Evidence. To access this resource, click on the 'Books' tab in the top-right corner of Westlaw.

Wiley Online Library

Database of references to some books and journal articles taken from a wide variety of subject areas. Full text access is only available to some 400 of the thousands of publications listed. You can only see the full text of those items that have an open lock symbol next to them. If no such symbol appears you do not have full text access.

WorldLII

Provides useful way of finding quality, freely accessible sources of law materials relating to individual countries

Training and certificates for legal databases

Get certified on legal research tools to improve your legal research skills, and enhance your employability.

Lexis Library
The test is available in basic and advanced versions covering either the law of England and Wales or the law of Scotland. To take the test, please click here.

Westlaw
This gives you an interactive walk-through of Westlaw UK with the option to test your skills and become Certified. If you decide to take the test and pass, you’ll be Certified in Westlaw UK and be sent a certificate in the post to demonstrate your skills, which you can list on your CV. To take the test, please click here.

Westlaw Videos
Introduction to Westlaw

Finding Case Law

Finding Legislation

Finding Journals