Oxford LibGuides: United Kingdom Law: Legal Databases

Databases for all Disciplines

A-Z Databases available at Oxford University
Use the drop down options to find databases by subject and type.

If you are interested in inter or cross disciplinary research areas/topics, the A-Z Database list can help you discover those which are available at Oxford, the majority are those to which the Bodleian has a subscription but there are some OA/free web sources included when these have been recommended by subject librarians.

Westlaw UK

Westlaw Edge UK
Alternative name: West Law UK ; Westlaw UK

Westlaw is provided through a generous donation by Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP
Westlaw is a large database of UK, US and international legal materials including cases, legislation and journal articles.
Coverage:
•UK statutes, statutory instruments and law reports
•England and Wales law reports
•US federal and state legislation and law reports
•Australian federal and state legislation and law reports
•Canadian federal and state legislation and law reports
•Hong Kong SAR law reports and laws
•European Union legislation and law reports
•UK and US law journals and texts
•Common Law Library and over 200 books published by Sweet & Maxwell (Thomson Reuters)
Because of licencing restrictions this database is not available to "Walk-in" users of the library.
Westlaw books
A searchable database of over 300 books published by Sweet & Maxwell (Thomson Reuters)

Westlaw is produced by Thomson Reuters and is one of major UK Legal databases. It is a subscription database and available to OU members with an Oxford SSO.

Law Reports and Cases

The Law Reports series - 1865 onwards
Weekly Law Reports
A large number of subject specialist reports
The English Reports (reprint of the nominate reports)
Unreported transcripts
Case Analysis documents including case summaries and citator information

Legislation

Fully consolidated full text of acts since 1267 (currently in force)
Statutory Instruments since 1948 (currently in force)
Selected historical versions of acts

Journals

The Legal Journals Index which has abstracts of every UK published legal article from 1986
A large number of full text journals including the Criminal Law Review, Public Law, Cambridge Law Journal and Oxford Journal of Legal Studies

Books

The Common Law Series including Chitty on Contract and Clerk and Lindsell on Tort
Dicey and Morris on Conflict of Laws
White Book (Civil Procedure)
Archbold on Criminal Procedure

Guides and tutorials

See the Legal Skills guide for a list of guides and tutorials.

HeinOnline

HeinOnline is a legal database which from a UK Law perspective is useful for its law journal collection. Under the terms of its licence the material it can include is restricted which means that the more recent articles may not be available (and it differs from title to title). If you are looking for an article it would be best to search Oxford Ejournals first and see if the article is included within HeinOnline first. It also has a large collection of US material and UN material.

Selected Journals

Cambridge Law Journal (1921-2005)
Denning Law Journal (1986-2009)
International Business Law Journal (1985-2007)
Judicial Review (1996-2007)
Legal Ethics (1998-2007)

There is also a collection of some of the student law reviews.

Guides and tutorials

See the Legal Skills guide for a list of guides and tutorials

HeinOnline

Alternative names: Hein Online ; HOL

HeinOnline includes five major collections:
The Law Journal Library includes over 500 U.S., U.K., Australian and International Law Journals. For most journals the date coverage starts very early (in many cases at the first issue). However the most recent editions (within the last calendar year) are sometime unavailable due to licensing restrictions. HeinOnline makes these journals available on a rolling yearly basis.
The Treaties and Agreements Library includes all U.S. treaties and agreements including those in force, expired or yet to be published.
The U.S. Supreme Court Library includes all U.S. Supreme Court opinions as published in the U.S. Reports
The Federal Register 1936-1995, and indexes to the register.
Legal Classics Library. Full text of over 100 legal texts including Blackstone's Commentaries (1803), Cardozo's Growth of the Law (1924), and Story's first edition of Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833). Provincial Statutes of Canada includes Provincial Statutes for ten of the Canadian provinces. Contains public and private acts passed by Canadian provincial governments. Current, revised, and historical content is now available for Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Ontario. Historical and revised content only is available for Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan.
All content consists of scanned images of the original printed editions. This allows you to view the content as it originally appeared in print complete with page numbers and pictures.
To save or print articles from HeinOnline choose PRINT OPTIONS followed by DOWNLOAD AS PDF. You will then be able to print out and/or save articles using Adobe Acrobat Reader.

I-law

i-law is a specialist legal database. OU members have access to the Maritime material which includes:

The Lloyds Law Reports
Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly.

Guides and tutorials

See the Legal Skills guide for a list of guides and tutorials

i-Law
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Extra username/password are required for this resource: see WebLearn for details

Alternative name: I Law

Law reports and journals in the fields of commercial and maritime law.
To see full text and browse the i-Law archive please log in and fill in your email address.

Bailii

The British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) provides access to the most comprehensive set of British and Irish primary legal materials that are available for free and in one place on the internet. BAILII is hosted in the UK and Ireland by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London and the Law Faculty, University College Cork. (Taken from website).

Contents

Transcripts from the House of Lords and now Supreme Court from 1838
Selected transcripts of Court of Appeal Civil Decisions from 1883
Selected transcripts of Court of Appeal Criminal Decisions from 1964
Selected transcripts of High Court decisions (date range varies by division see website for more details)
To date a minimal number of Family decisions in the Magistrates and County courts.
Selected transcripts from a large number of tribunals (see website for further details)
Legislation (some as originally enacted and some amended) 1800-
Public General Acts of the United Kingdom Parliament (1801 to 1900)
Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain (1707 - 1800)
Acts of the English Parliament (1267 - 1706)
Acts of the pre-UK Parliaments (1424 - 1707)

BAILII
Alternative names: British and Irish Legal Information Institute ; British & Irish Legal Information Institute

Free access to British and Irish judgments. General coverage starts mid 1990s, though earlier key judgments are also included. Bailii also includes a subject arrangement of judgments. The judgments are transcripts and do not include arguments of counsel or headnotes. For a wider selection of Law Reports please see Justis, Lexis or Westlaw.

Legal Databases Quick start

None of the databases are fully comprehensive and as the majority are commercially produced they only contain content that they have permission to reproduce and this is typically material that they have published themselves or they have been able to 'buy' from other publishers. On this page is a selection of some of the major UK databases. There are online tutorials for these on the Legal Research Skills guide. A list of all legal databases in the Bodleian are contained on our website , please use the link below:

Bodleian Law Library - Legal Databases page
An alphabetical list of legal databases.

Legal Skills and Research
by Kate Matthews Last Updated Apr 10, 2021 8689 views this year

Lexis Library

LexisLibrary
This resource requires you to log in with your Oxford SSO again at the homepage.

Alternative names: LNB ; Lexis Nexis Butterworths Lexis Library

Lexis Nexis Butterworths (LNB) includes primary and secondary legal materials from the UK, EU, USA and many other jurisdictions.
It has particularly good collections of UK cases and in particular includes The Law Reports and The All England Law Reports, as well as many specialist series of reports. It is also a good source of UK legislation as it includes all UK Acts and Statutory Instruments as they currently stand.
LNB is also an excellent source of US primary legal materials and includes a huge amount of legal commentary from the UK and the US.
Lexis content formerly provided via the Lexis Nexis Professional interface is now available via LNB which replaces Professional.

Lexis Library is produced by Lexis Nexis (formally Butterworths) and is one of the major UK legal databases. It is a subscription database which is available to OU members with an Oxford SSO. Contents include:

Law Reports and Cases

The Law Reports series - from 1865
The All England Reports (main series as well as specialist series)
A number of specialist law reports series
The English Reports
CaseSearch (case citator)
Unreported transcripts

Legislation

Fully consolidated texts of act (currently in force)
A historical version service
Statutory Instruments currently in force

Journals

An index of legal journals abstracts
A number of full text journals including the New Law Journal (selected articles only), Law Society Gazette, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies and Family Law

Commentary

Halsbury's Laws of England
A large number of Lexis Nexis Butterworth publications such as ..

Guides and tutorials

See the Legal Skills guide for a list of guides and tutorials

Justis One

Justis One is a new combined database incorporating Justis and JustCite

Justis One Content

Case law going back to 1163 including State Reports, English Reports and a number of other specialist series
Acts (unamended but with links to amendments) going back to 1235
Statutory Instruments (unamended) going back to 1801 (not comprehensive)
Added features that allow analysis of case law and legislation

Guides and tutorials

See the Legal Skills guide for a list of guides and tutorials

Justis
Sponsorship: The Bodleian Law Library’s subscription is generously supported by Hogan Lovells.

Alternative names: Justis ; JustisOne ; Justis One; vLex Justis

Due to licensing restrictions this database is not available to "Walk-in" users of the library.
Justis One offers access to a range of law reports, transcripts and other materials from the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the Caribbean, and the EU.
In addition it includes the full text of the following: Aspinall's Maritime Law Cases, English Reports, State Trials, CCH Tax Cases, Immigration Appeal Reports, Inquest Law Reports, Mental Health Reports, Session Cases Archive, Irish Reports & Digest, Jersey Law Reports, Bermuda Law Reports, Cayman Islands Law Reports, The Singapore Law Reports, and the International Law Reports.
Justis One offers the ability to search across UK, Irish, Australian and Canadian judgements.
Also included in the service are Justis Parliament and Justis Human Rights.

Legislation.gov

This is a free database produced by the UK Government. It replaced the Statute Law Database and the legislation section of OPSI.

Contents (taken from the website)

All legislation from 1988 – present day is available on this site as amended.
There are no secondary legislation items (e.g Statutory Instruments) available before 1988 as they are not available in a web-publishable format.
Most pre-1988 primary legislation is available on this site. In some cases they only have the original published (as enacted) version and no revised version.

Legislation.gov.uk
Free resource. Excellent source for historic (as originally enacted) version of legislation. DO NOT rely on it to be completely up-to-date with amendments/consolidation. Replaced the Statute Law Database.