Oxford LibGuides: Law & Literature: Journals

Finding relevant journals & finding articles on law and literature

A journal is a regular publication (monthly, yearly, etc.) in which you will find academic and research articles. The articles present current research and quick (but thoughtful) responses to legal developments, such as Case Comments..
Journals which are peer-reviewed submit potential articles to evaluation by other experts before publication, so you can be confident of the quality of those finally included in the volume.
The majority of journals held by the Bodleian Libraries in both physical and electronic formats can be searched via SOLO, however you may find the Law Library's own database easier to use.

Search our law reports and journals (Law Bod)
Database maintained by the Bodleian Law Library. Put in the title of the law report or law journal which contains the report or article you wish to read, then click search. The results will show which (if any) database will provide full text access and also the shelf mark to the print holdings of the publication in the Bodleian Law Library. Not everything is available online!

Use the other tabs in this box to find recommended journals and guidance on the special online tools to help you find articles in law journals,

Some key journals

Cardozo studies in law and literature 1989-2001 (contd asLaw and Literature 2002 -)
Remote access requires Oxford SSO.
Law and critique 1990 -
Remote access requires Oxford SSO
Law and Literature 2002 - (formerly Cardozo studies in law and literature 1989-2001)
Remote access requires Oxford SSO.
Law, culture and the humanities 2005-
Remote access requires Oxford SSO
Law, text, culture 1994-
Remote access requires Oxford SSO.

Holders of an Oxford SSO have access to many English language law journals via the following databases. Some of the generalist journals may well include articles in one of the fields of law and literature.

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.
Lexis+ UK This link opens in a new window
This resource requires you to log in with your Oxford SSO again at the homepage.

Alternative names:Lexis ; LexisLibrary ; Lexis Library ; Lexis International

Lexis+ includes extensive primary and secondary legal materials from the UK, EU, USA and many other jurisdictions. It is the only online source for the full text of the All England Law Reports and Halsbury’s Laws. International content can be accessed by following the “International” link on the home page. UK legal news and newspapers are also included
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window

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.
Westlaw US
Westlaw US is a large legal database with both primary and secondary sources. Legal research tools include the KeyCite citator, and West Key number system for case law.
Coverage:
US federal and state legislation
US federal and state law reports
US law reviews and journals
US federal and state legal encyclopedias and dictionaries
US legal texts and treatises
US Restatements & Principles of the Law
Because of licencing restrictions this database is not available to "Walk-in" users of the library.

Tip for SOLO results for journal searches
It is quite common for an ejournal to be supplied by more than one database. Usually this is because no single provider has the whole run of the journal from the first volume to the most recent. Consequently, if you are looking for a particular article take care to select the database which includes the volume/year of your citation - this will not necessarily be the first on the list of alternatives.

OU e-journals A-Z
A special search tool to help you find e-journals available to you while at Oxford, either by their title or by their subject. Click the tab By Subject. Under Category, Law is an option. Click this and a range of subcategory filters appears - which you can apply by clicking, should you so wish. Of course for interdisciplinary interests check out any other relevant Categories too.

Available on the free web

Directory of open access journals (DOAJ) : Law Filter On
Portal to Open Access law journals. The Publisher's Countries filter in the left hand column may be good first filter to apply for studies in foreign jurisdictions

Social Science Research Network (SSRN) This link opens in a new window

Archive of social science papers including legal papers.
The subscribed collections are:
•Economics Research
•Financial Economics
•Legal Scholarship
•Management Research
Bepress Legal Repository This link opens in a new window

Alternative name: Berkeley Electronic Press

The Bepress Legal Repository is a network of law-related research materials. Law schools, research units, institutes, centers, think tanks, conferences, and other subject-appropriate groups post materials to specific publications (e.g., the USC Working Paper Series).

LawArXiv: Legal scholarship in the open [ARCHIVE]
2017-2019. LawArXiv was an open access legal repository; preprints deposited during its life remain available to all to download

The Law Library does not have a single periodicals room or floor: please take careful note of the section of the shelf mark before the 300, and then also the year or years of the particular issues you wish to consult. Both can play a role in where you will find them.

Shelf mark beginning

Cw UK - on level 2, the entrance level

General 300
Journal issues from and including 2000 are on Level 1; older issues up to and including 1999 are on the Ground Floor.

Jurisp 300
Journal issues from and including 2000 are on Level 1; older issues up to and including 1999 are on the Ground Floor.

The name of a non-European jurisdiction eg Cw Austral (for Australia)
Journal issues from and including 2000 are on Level 1; older issues up to and including 1999 are on the Ground Floor.

The name of a European jurisdiction eg Italy
Journal issues from and including 2000 are on Level 3; older issues up to and including 1999 are on the Ground Floor.

Please ask a member of staff for directions when you visit the Law Bod.

Legal databases and ejournal platforms offer ways for you to set up customised alerts and/or an RSS feed. Look out for "Current Awareness," "Stay up to Date," "Create Alert" or the bell icon: instructions are usually clear. If you do encounter difficulties please contact us.
Note that Westlaw Edge UK also includes the formerly separate LawTel service
An ETOC or TOC option provides the entire table of contents of each new journal issue.
If you come to the Law Library, check out the Just In Corner on Level 2 (the entrance level) which has a display of the most recent issues of those law journals still received in print. (This display is updated weekiy.)

In addition (especially if you have inter disciplinary interests)

Some researchers may remember ZETOC. In its place we recommend the open access service JournalsTOCs - "the largest, free collection of scholarly journal Tables of Contents (TOCs): 32,312 journals including 15,741 selected Open Access journals and 11,834 Hybrid journals, from 3333 publishers."
Please note this requires you to register as an individual - it is not an Oxford SSO related eresource.

JournalTOCs
is the largest, free collection of scholarly journal Tables of Contents (TOCs): 32,312 journals including 15,741 selected Open Access journals and 11,834 Hybrid journals, from 3333 publishers.

Remember: legal developments may well be the subject of articles in law journals published in other jurisdictions.
There are special tools - not just SOLO's article search and google scholar! - to help you locate articles published in scholarly journals. Do make use of them!

Legal Journals Index (LJI)
Requires Oxford SSO & personal registration. Westlaw Edge UK indexes more UK law journal issues than it holds in full text. (1986 onwards) If Westlaw only has the abstract make a note of the citation details. If needed, use Cardiff Index to find the full title of the journal, then search SOLO by the full title of the journal. In other words, search SOLO for LLoyd's Maritime & Commercial Law Quarterly (not LMCLQ)

Westlaw US
Westlaw US is a large legal database with both primary and secondary sources. Legal research tools include the KeyCite citator, and West Key number system for case law.
Coverage:
US federal and state legislation
US federal and state law reports
US law reviews and journals
US federal and state legal encyclopedias and dictionaries
US legal texts and treatises
US Restatements & Principles of the Law
Because of licencing restrictions this database is not available to "Walk-in" users of the library.
Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective: 1908-1981

This retrospective database indexes over 750 legal periodicals published in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Annual surveys of the laws of a jurisdiction, annual surveys of the federal courts, yearbooks, annual institutes, and annual reviews of the work in a given field or on a given topic will also be covered.
Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals This link opens in a new window

Alternative name: IFLP

Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (produced by The American Association of Law Libraries) provides access to legal literature worldwide, covering all forms of foreign (non-Anglo-American) law from 1985 onwards. This includes comparative law and legal systems, such as Islamic law; socialist law; public and private international law; and transnational commercial law. The data is not limited by country of publication, but rather type of publication. Therefore whilst publications concerning British and American law are not included, British and American publications concerning foreign law are included.

The types of documents covered include journal articles, congress reports, essay collections, yearbooks, and book reviews. The database encompasses all languages. Materials in Greek, Cyrillic, and East Asian vernacular are Romanized according to Library of Congress standards. Arabic and Hebrew titles are translated into English or French.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window

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.

HeinOnline's Scholarcheck
Libguide provided by Hein to help you make use of this feature.

Social Sciences Citation Index

Alternative names: Web of Science ; SSCI. SSCI is the machine readable version of the printed Social Sciences Citation Index. It provides bibliographic references to significant items from over 1,400 journals in the behavioural and social sciences. Selected items from over 3,100 physical and natural sciences journals are also included to provide multidisciplinary coverage. This amounts to approximately 130,000 articles per year.
The data, which is updated weekly, consists of articles for the current year, with other year's data going back to 1970. The data for each index defaults to the current year plus the three previous years (this can be reset), with searches covering one index at a time. Many of the more recent articles contain abstracts, as well as author, title and journal information with lists of citations.

Indexing tools on the free web

Google Scholar search (enhancements)
Enhancements: OU members should
1) click on the 3 parallel lines (top left corner before google logo), then click Settings
Among the options:
1) Search Results - last options in central panel, if you are using RMS adjust Bibliography manager options
2) Library Links in the left hand column, type Oxford in the search box and then click in box alongside "University of Oxford Find it @ Oxford" and finally click Save this setting. This will help you get online access to material in some (but not all) legal databases for which the Law Bod has a subscription when on the OU network/working via VPN.
LawCite search
more... less...

LawCite is being built as part of a three year project that is funded by the Australian Research Council in co-operation with a number of Australian courts and other commercial and non-commercial organisations. It is being developed at AustLII in collaboration with other members of the Free Access to Law Movement - in particular BAILII , HKLII , PacLII , SAFLII , NZLII and CYLAW. Particularly strong for common law countries, but the civil law dimension is growing

Related Bodleian guide

English Language and Literature
by English Faculty Library EFL Last Updated Sep 26, 2022 3317 views this year

Inter-library loans

If the Bodleian Libraries don't have the journal you are looking for, we may be able to source it through Oxford's inter-library loan service.

Inter-library Loans Service Online Form
Use this form to request material not held by the Bodleian Libraries. Please check Oxford collections on SOLO and ensure that the item is not in stock, either in print or electronically.

Recommend a journal

If the Bodleian Libraries don't have the journal or article you are looking for, you can make a recommendation by completing the form below (Oxford Single-Sign On required).

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