An Introduction to Legal
Literature and UCL Law Library
2
INTRODUCTION
The aim of this guide is to introduce new law students to the main categories of legal
information with notes, where appropriate, on the holdings of UCL Library. In this
introductory guide, the emphasis is on the legal materials of England and Wales.
The study of law is primarily the study of legal literature. It is important, as a law
student, that you are able to find this material without difficulty in both print and
electronic form. You need to become familiar with the law library, its holdings and
layout, and to master the basic skills of legal research.
A lot of the printed material in the library is also available online, which is easier to use.
However, it is important to learn how to use the printed sources in order to have the
skills to find information that is not online, or is not available to you once you leave
UCL.
You won't use all of the sources described here when you first start your course, but
they will prove valuable when you need to carry out serious research on your own for a
moot or an extended essay.
3
LAW REPORTS
A law report contains the judgment delivered by the court in a particular case. It is not
a complete account of a hearing; rather it is a record of the legal issues involved and
the decisions of the court for use as a precedent in subsequent cases. Not all cases
are reported, only those which extend, modify or reinterpret the law. Although some
law report series are considered more authoritative than others, there is no official
series of reports and any law report which has been signed by a barrister may be cited
in court.
Parts of a Law Report
Fig.1 reproduces the first page of a case from a series called the Weekly Law Reports
and shows the format of a typical law report:
(1)
Title. This includes the name of the case, the date of the hearing, the
name of the court and the name or names of the judges presiding.
(2)
Catchwords. These show, at a glance, the subject of the case.
(3)
Head-note. This is a summary of the case prepared by the reporter and,
following the word "Held", a record of the court's decision.
(4)
List of cases cited in argument and referred to in the judgment.
(5)
Facts and previous history of the case.
(6)
Names of counsel. In some law reports a summary of counsel's
argument may also appear here.
(7)
The judgment or, in appeal cases, judgments.
Citation of Cases
A reference to a case, called a case citation, contains the following elements: the name
of the case, the year the report of the case was published, the volume number of the
report series, the abbreviated name of the report series, and the page number. For
example, the case:
Gallagher v Post Office [1970] 3 All ER 712
can be found on page 712 of the third volume of the All England Law Reports for 1970.
Each different series of law reports has its own abbreviation. You will soon become
familiar with the most common abbreviations; others can be traced through the
dictionaries of abbreviations referred to on p.21 below.
4
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
Fig. 1
5
As your studies progress, you will notice that some case citations give the date of the
report in square brackets and some in round brackets. If the date is given in square
brackets, this means that it is an essential part of the citation. For example:
Cohen v Nessdale Ltd [1981] 3 All ER 118
There is a volume 3 of the All England Law Reports published every year, so it would
not be possible to find the report of this case without knowing the year of publication.
Where the date is given in round brackets, the case could be traced without it. For
example:
Rex v Kingston (1948) 32 Cr App R 183
The Criminal Appeal Reports only has one volume 32, which means that this case
could be found from the volume and page number alone.
Important cases may be reported in more than one series of law reports and the
citation will normally reflect this. For example, the case:
McIlraith v Grady [1968] 1 QB 468, [1967] 3 WLR 1331, [1967] 3 All ER 625
can be found in The Law Reports: Queen’s Bench Division, the Weekly Law Reports
and the All England Law Reports.
Since 2001 a ‘neutral’ style of citation has been adopted by the courts to reflect the fact
that transcripts of judgments are increasingly made available online before they are
reported in a published series. It also makes it easier to identify the correct case if the
parties have common names, such as Smith, Patel or Jones. These neutral citations
consist of the case name, the year judgment was given, the abbreviation for the court
hearing the case, and a case number assigned by the court. For example, the citation:
Jones v Whalley [2006] UKHL 41
indicates that the case Jones v Whalley was the 41st judgment handed down by the
House of Lords in 2006. Where a case is reported in published series, the neutral
citation will be given first, before any print citations unless the case is pre-2001.
For further information about legal citations, you should consult the 4th edition of the
Oxford University Standard for Legal Citations (OSCOLA) which is available online at:
http://www.law.ox.ac.uk/publications/oscola.php.
Early Series of Law Reports
Before 1865, reports were written by private reporters and usually published under their
own name; for example, Barnewall and Alderson’s Reports, Coke's Reports, and
Espinasse's Reports. For this reason they are sometimes referred to collectively as the
nominate reports. There are a large number of different series each covering only a
few years. The most important of these have been reprinted in a series called the
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English Reports. When you are referred to a pre-1865 case, it will frequently be in the
English Reports, even if this is not reflected in the citation. Volumes 177-178 contain
an alphabetical list of cases in the series, but you can also identify the correct volume
by looking up the abbreviation for the nominate report in Raistrick's Index to Legal
Citations and Abbreviations or the online Cardiff index (see p.21 for details).
The library has a printed set of the English Reports in the law library in the law reports
section on the left hand side. The English Reports are also widely available online,
including through Westlaw UK, Lexis Library and on the free online source
www.commonlii.org. See the section on Online Sources at p.23 for information on how
to access these databases.
General Series
In 1865 the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting (ICLR) commenced publication of a
semi-official set of reports called The Law Reports. This is the most authoritative
series of reports. Originally The Law Reports were divided into eleven sub-series,
each covering a particular court or courts. As the court structure was simplified, the
number of parts was reduced, to six in 1875, and then to four from 1881. The present
four parts comprising the series are:




Appeal Cases (AC)
Chancery Division (Ch)
Queen's (or King's) Bench Division (QB or KB)
Family Division (Fam)
Appeal Cases contains cases heard by the Supreme Court (formerly the House of
Lords) and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; the other three series include
both judgments at first instance, appeals to the Court of Appeal and references to the
European Court of Justice. Fig. 2 is a table of The Law Reports series listed in the
order they appear on the shelves, with their abbreviations in brackets.
The ICLR also publishes the Weekly Law Reports (WLR) which is published weekly
and at the end of the year bound into 3 volumes. Volumes 2 and 3 contain cases that
will later appear in greater detail in The Law Reports; cases in Volume 1 are not
republished.
The All England Law Reports is the best known and most important of the other
series of law reports and dates from 1936. It appears weekly and is bound in 3 or 4
volumes per year. A companion series, the All England Law Reports Reprint, contains
selected cases from 1558-1935.
All three series are available in the law reports section of the law library and on several
online sources. See p.23 below for further details.
7
TABLE OF THE LAW REPORTS
APPELLATE SERIES
1865-1875
English and Irish Appeals
Privy Council Appeals
Scotch & Divorce Appeals
(LR … HL)
(LR … PC)
(LR … Sc & Div)
1875-1890
Appeal Cases
(App Cas)
1891-
Appeal Cases
(AC)
EQUITY SERIES
1865-1875
Chancery Appeal Cases
Equity Cases
(LR … Ch App)
(LR … Eq)
1875-1890
Chancery Division
(Ch D)
1891-
Chancery Division
(Ch)
COMMON LAW SERIES
1865-1875
Common Pleas Cases
Exchequer Cases
Crown Cases Reserved
Queen’s Bench Cases
(LR … CP)
(LR … Ex)
(LR … CCR)
(LR … QB)
1875-1880
Common Pleas Division
Exchequer Division
Queen’s Bench Division
(CPD)
(Ex D)
(QBD)
1881-1890
Queen’s Bench Division
(QBD)
1891-
Queen’s (or King’s) Bench Division
(QB or KB)
OTHER SERIES
1865-1875
Admiralty and Ecclesiastical Cases
Probate and Divorce Cases
(LR … A & E)
(LR … P & D)
1875-1890
Probate Division
(PD)
1891-1971
Probate Division
(P)
1972-
Family Division
(Fam)
Fig. 2
8
Specialist Series
Certain series of reports only contain cases on a particular subject, for example, Lloyd’s
Law Reports (shipping), the Industrial Relations Law Reports (employment) and the
Family Law Reports (family). Many of these are available in the law library, and some
are available online through the various databases to which the Library subscribes.
See p.23 for further details.
Notes of Decisions
Summaries of legal decisions appear in a number of newspapers and legal journals
such as Criminal Law Review, Solicitors' Journal and the Law Society's Gazette.
Since 1990, cases from The Times newspaper have also been published as a separate
series called the Times Law Reports. Many cases summarised in newspapers and
journals are not reported elsewhere.
Indexes to Cases
Indexes to cases are useful for:

locating a case if you know nothing more than the names of the parties involved
(useful if your lecture notes are incomplete or incorrect!)

tracing the judicial history of a case - i.e. the names of later cases which have
considered, distinguished, applied or overruled the original case.

finding cases on a particular subject (useful for moots)
The indexes listed below can all be found in the Law Reference area. This is on the
right as you enter the UCL law library. There is some overlap of coverage between the
different series, but each has its particular strengths.
Current Law Case Citator. This is a list of cases reported or cited in court since 1947.
The original volume covers the period 1947-1976, a second volume covers 1977-97, a
third 1998-2001, and a fourth 2002-04. More recent cases are listed in annual
paperback supplements.
Cases heard or cited since the period covered by the Citator can be traced through the
Cumulative Table of Cases in the most recent monthly part of Current Law (see below).
A copy of the bound volumes of the Citator in the Library is entitled Scottish Current
Law Case Citator but don't be misled by the title - the Scottish Current Law Case
Citator is so called because it lists both English AND Scottish cases. The Citator can
be used to:

trace cases from an incomplete reference (including cases from before 1947 if
they have been cited since then). If you do not know the date of the case you
will have to check each volume of the citator, starting with the oldest volume
9

trace the judicial history of a case since 1947 (but note that this may involve
consulting a number of different volumes to ensure that your information is upto-date).
Fig. 3 shows a typical page from the Citator.
*
**
* The case Forsyth v Philips was digested (i.e. summarised) in the Current Law Year Book for 1964,
paragraph (not page!) 3218
** The case Fortescue v Lostwithiel & Fowey Rly. Co. has been applied in a later case which was
digested in the Current Law Year Book for 1972, paragraph 520
Fig. 3
10
Current Law is a monthly publication which summarises all new developments in the
law including cases, statutes, statutory instruments and periodical articles, and is
arranged by subject. It also includes a table of recent cases which cumulates monthly
and updates the information found in the Citator listed above. It is a useful way of
keeping up with changes in the law. At the end of the year the monthly parts are
replaced by an annual volume or Year Book. At UCL we have a mixture of both
Scottish and English Year Books; the Scottish Year Books can be used to trace English
legal developments as they contain BOTH English and Scottish materials, the Scottish
cases appearing in a separate section at the end. Current Law is useful for:

finding recent cases (and other legal developments) on a subject

updating the information in the Citator; i.e. locating new cases from an
incomplete reference and tracing the recent judicial history of a case.
The Law Reports Index. This index covers not only the The Law Reports themselves,
but also other major English series as well. The permanent index volumes (covering a
period of 10 years in most cases) are kept up-to-date by annual volumes. Each
volume includes a table of statutes judicially considered and a subject index. The Index
is useful for:

locating particular cases

tracing the judicial history of a case

finding cases on a particular subject
It only covers the main series of law reports and can be tedious to search for older
cases because of the number of volumes you need to check. However, it is more userfriendly than the Citator, particularly for tracing cases judicially considered.
The Digest (formerly The English and Empire Digest) is a multi volume work that
provides brief summaries of all leading cases, including many from the Commonwealth
and the European courts. It is arranged by subject. Particular cases can be found
through the consolidated table of cases, although this only indicates the Digest volume
and subject title for each case. To find the case summary itself (including the citation),
you then consult the table of cases at the front of the appropriate volume. This gives
the exact case (or paragraph) number. There is a consolidated subject index to the
whole series. The Digest has a wide coverage but it is not an easy work to use; its
particular strengths are:

tracking down old and obscure cases (and because it summarises them it can
be useful if we don't have the actual report in the Library)

tracing the judicial history of a case before the period covered by the Citator
(i.e. before 1947)

finding cases on a particular subject. This is its main strength, but you may
need to check other sources (Current Law or Law Reports Index) for recent
cases.
11
STATUTES
A statute, or Act of Parliament, is a legal document that expresses the will of
Parliament. It is introduced into Parliament as a Bill and becomes an Act once it has
been approved by both Houses of Parliament and has received the Royal Assent.
Each Bill passes through various stages and, during these stages, may be
considerably altered by Parliament. You will not normally need to read Parliamentary
debates on Bills but if required they can be found in Hansard which is available online
on the UK Parliament website from 1988 onwards. Printed volumes of earlier years are
held in the Library Store. There are two series, one for the House of Commons and one
for the House of Lords.
Parts of an Act
Each Act is made up of a number of distinct parts (see Fig. 4.):
(1)
Short title.
(2)
Official citation.
(3)
Long title. This describes, in more detail, the purpose of the Act.
(4)
Date of Royal Assent. This is the date that the Bill became an Act - it is
not necessarily the date that the Act came (or comes) into force (see (7)
below).
(5)
Enacting formula.
(6)
Text of the Act. An Act is divided into sections, subsections and
paragraphs. There may also be schedules at the end of some Acts
containing additional information which would otherwise make the main
text of the Act excessively detailed. They may include repeals of earlier
legislation.
(7)
Commencement and extent. This information is often found in the last
section of the Act. If the Act does not come into force on the date of
Royal Assent, then the commencement section will state a subsequent
date or grant the Minister power to bring part of, or the entire Act into
force by means of a statutory instrument.
12
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
Fig. 4
13
Citation of Acts
Statutes are usually referred to by their short title, e.g. Highways Act 1980.
Alternatively the reference will take the form of an official citation which currently
comprises the year in which the Act was passed and a serial number, called a chapter
number. Thus, the Highways Act was the 66th Act to receive Royal Assent in 1980
and is officially cited as: 1980 c 66 (i.e. 1980 chapter 66).
Before 1963, however, Acts were cited not by calendar year but by the year of the
monarch's reign, or regnal year. They were numbered consecutively through the
parliamentary session (which normally runs from November to the following October)
and then cited according to the regnal year in which that session fell, e.g.
2 & 3 Vict c 5
This was the 5th Act to be passed in the parliamentary session covering the 2nd and
3rd years of Queen Victoria's reign. You won't see this kind of reference very often, as
many "old" citations have been converted to calendar years, but you will notice that old
volumes of statutes have regnal years on the spine. For those who don't remember
the order of monarchs, tables of regnal years can be found in some legal dictionaries.
Publication of Statutes
Acts are published individually soon after receiving the Royal Assent, both in print and
online at www.legislation.gov.uk. Later they appear in bound volumes in a number of
different collected editions of statutes, some published officially, others issued by
commercial publishers. There is an important distinction between:

series which include the text of each Act as it was originally enacted, i.e. the
text as passed by Parliament, not necessarily what is currently in force.

series which incorporate amendments made by later Acts and Statutory
Instruments into the text of the Act, and therefore contain the up-to-date text of
the Act
The following two series contain the text of Acts as originally enacted, arranged in
chronological order, and are particularly useful for finding the text of Acts which are no
longer in force. They are on the shelves of the law library, on the left as you enter.
Public General Acts and Measures. This is the official series of Acts published by
TSO (formerly HMSO). The volumes of this series held in the Library are bound in a
variety of styles, including some entitled Law Reports Statutes. Do not be misled by
this title: these contain statutes and not law reports! The oldest Acts in the library are in
the Statutes at Large series.
Current Law Statutes Annotated. Statutes in this series include annotations (i.e.
commentary or notes) which are not part of the Act but are inserted into the text to help
the user. These give the background to the Act, explain words and phrases used and
relate new law to existing case law. The set held in the Library starts in 1949 and we
14
have a mixture of both Scottish and English editions of Current Law Statutes. Don't be
misled by the title: the Scottish Current Law Statutes also contains all statutes relating
to England.
Note: Current Law also publishes a Statute or Legislation Citator. This series is shelved
with the Case Citator noted above and it lists, in various volumes, amendments and
repeals to legislation, cases considering a section, etc.
Halsbury's Statutes contains the amended text of those Acts which are still in force,
arranged by subject and can be used to find the current version of an Act:
The series comprises 52 bound volumes and includes additional annotations similar to
those in Current Law Statutes. Acts passed after the publication of the relevant bound
volume are in the loose-leaf Current Statutes Service (also arranged by subject). The
whole series is kept up-to-date by an annual Cumulative Supplement and a loose-leaf
Noter-up Service.

To find a particular Act in Halsbury's, consult the lists of statutes in the
Consolidated Index volume.

To find out whether an Act has been amended or repealed since the bound
volume was published, check the Cumulative Supplement and then the looseleaf Noter-up, which are arranged in the same subject order as the main
sequence.

To find Acts or sections of an Act on a particular topic consult the index in the
Consolidated Index volume.

Issued with the series is a volume called Is it in Force? which gives the
commencement dates of Acts passed since 1960.
Students often find Halsbury's Statutes difficult to use. However, it is probably the most
useful printed collection of statutes in the Library as it gives the most up to date version
of legislation. Further information on how to use it can be found in the pamphlet User's
Guide, filed at the front of current statutes service Vol. A.
Amendments and Repeals
A significant number of statutes are amended or repealed each year, which means that
it is important when consulting an Act to ensure that it is still in force and that one has
the current text. Many students rely on paperback collections of statutes, materials,
etc., and this is usually satisfactory provided they were published recently. However,
being able to trace an up-to-date version of an Act is an important skill for law students
(and a vital one for lawyers) so you should try to acquire some familiarity with, for
example, Halsbury's Statutes. There are also indexes which specifically list
amendments and repeals such as the Current Law Statute/Legislation Citator noted
above. At this stage you won't need to consult these but they are described in some
detail in the books on legal research listed at the end of this guide.
15
Online Access to Acts
The full, amended text of all Public and General Acts in force is available from the two
major commercial legal databases that we subscribe to, Lexis®Library and Westlaw
UK. You may find these easier to use, but it is worth making yourself familiar with the
printed versions as you might not always have access to commercial legal databases.
On Lexis®Library you have access to the annotations found in Halsbury's Statutes, and
Westlaw also provides annotations. See p.23 below for further details.
Acts of Parliament in both amended and original form are also freely available through
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ which is maintained by The National Archives. Treat
amended versions with caution – they will not be as up to date as the text on the
commercial legal databases.
16
DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Many Acts set out the general provisions of law on a particular subject and confer
powers on another authority, usually a Minister, to make regulations implementing
these provisions. This is delegated legislation, the bulk of which is found in the
Statutory Instrument series. Statutory instruments (S.I.s) deal with matters too detailed
or technical to be included in an Act of Parliament. They can easily be amended or
repealed, thus enabling the Government to respond quickly to changing circumstances.
There are about 3000 statutory instruments made every year and they come under
titles such as Rules, Regulations or Orders.
Most S.I.s are of little legal interest although some are important (e.g. Rules of the
Supreme Court). A particular type of S.I., called a Commencement Order, is used to
bring Acts or sections of Acts into force.
Citation of Statutory Instruments
Statutory instruments may be cited by title (e.g. The Bingo Duty (Exemptions Order
1984) or by year and running number (e.g. S.I. 1985 No. 1081, or S.I. 1985/1081).
Before 1948 they were called statutory rules and orders, and citations took the form,
e.g. S.R. & O. 1938 No 1564.
Publication of Statutory Instruments
The official series of Statutory Instruments contains all S.I.s passed in a year, except
those of purely local interest, arranged in over several volumes in numerical order.
Halsbury's Statutory Instruments is a commercial edition which includes all S.I.s in
force. Many are only summarized and not reproduced in full, but those in full give the
text of the S.I. as amended. Like Halsbury's Statutes it is arranged in subject order and
contains additional explanatory material.
The Consolidated Index includes an alphabetical list of S.I.’s. The Halsbury’s Statutory
Instruments Citator notes which S.I.’s are in force, amended, spent or revoked.
Both these series can be found the in the law library, on the left as you enter.
Online Access to Statutory Instruments
Statutory Instruments and other forms of delegated legislation are also available in the
Lexis Library database from 1786 onwards, and from 1948 onwards in Westlaw UK.
This is the best source for up to date S.I.’s..
All S.I.s. from 1987 onwards are also available through www.legislation.gov.uk. This
website also has some older delegated legislation.
17
SECONDARY SOURCES
Law reports and legislation are the primary sources of law – that is, the law itself. The
Library has a wide range of secondary sources (commentaries, summaries,
explanations and discussions of the law) which refer by means of citation, back to the
law itself. Textbooks and journals are the most widely used secondary sources. Other
secondary sources, such as dictionaries, encyclopaedias, digests and periodical
indexes, are shelved in the Law Reference area, on the right as you enter the law
library.
Textbooks
Textbooks are arranged on the shelves by subject according to the Library's own
classification scheme. Fig. 5 shows the broad outline of the scheme and those
classification numbers of particular interest to LLB students.
To find a book in the Library, you’ll need to search the online catalogue, which is called
Explore. There are public Explore terminals in the computer cluster and enquiry desk
areas. You will be shown how to use Explore on your library tour, but if you need more
help, there are leaflets available and Library staff on hand at the enquiry and issue
desks who will be happy to assist.
Note that some of the older material held in the Library is not on Explore. You can
locate these items by consulting the digitised card catalogue, but you should always try
Explore first.
Certain popular textbooks are removed from the ordinary shelves and placed in a
separate short loan collection in the issue desk area. If the book you need is on loan
you can place a reservation on Explore to borrow it when the book is returned.
Government Publications
Government publications (e.g. Law Commission reports, White Papers, Royal
Commission reports, reports of official committees of inquiry) are catalogued
individually and shelved with the textbooks on the same subject. You will sometimes
be referred to Command Papers: these are major government reports presented to
Parliament "by command of Her Majesty". Each Command Paper has a number, and
Command Papers are frequently cited by their number preceded by an official
abbreviation for "Command". From 1956 to 1986, this was Cmnd; in 1986 it changed
to Cm. Citations thus take the form, e.g. Cmnd 3638, or Cm 95.
Government publications can be traced on Explore in various ways, but the easiest
method is often to enter keywords from the title, or the Command Paper number. In
the digitised card catalogue, they usually appear under the heading GREAT BRITAIN,
followed by the name of the Department / Committee (e.g. GREAT BRITAIN. Home
Office). References to official publications can be difficult; don't hesitate to ask Library
staff for help.
18
UCL LIBRARY CLASSIFICATION SCHEME : LAW
A
LAW GENERALLY, legal profession, statutory interpretation
B
JURISPRUDENCE
B50
Law and medical ethics
BS
SOCIOLOGY OF LAW
C
LEGAL HISTORY GENERALLY
D
ENGLISH LEGAL HISTORY
E
PUBLIC LAW
E5 – E10
E20
E27
E60
E80
E90
Constitutional law and politics
Administrative law
Civil rights
English legal system
Environmental law
Media law
F-G
COMMONWEALTH AND FOREIGN PUBLIC LAW
H
CRIMINAL LAW
H20
Criminology
H100 – H255 Crime Science
J
PRIVATE LAW
J10
Civil procedure and evidence
J20
Contract
J40
Tort
J50
Commercial law
J84
Company law
J95
Labour law
J102
Land law
J168
Family law
K
COMMONWEALTH PRIVATE LAW
L
CONFLICT OF LAWS
M
FOREIGN AND COMPARATIVE LAW
R
ROMAN LAW
W
INTERNATIONAL LAW
W100
European law
Fig. 5
19
You will also find full text Command Papers on the House of Commons Parliamentary
Papers online database, which includes anything published before the 2004-2005
parliamentary session. This database can be accessed using Explore.
Periodicals
Periodicals, or journals, contain articles, comments on recent legal developments,
notes of new cases, book reviews and professional news. Like law reports, periodicals
are cited by an abbreviation. Thus:
Mann, F.A. Fusion of the legal professions (1977) 93 L.Q.R. 367
is a reference to an article, published in 1977, in Volume 93 of the Law Quarterly
Review, page 367. Periodical abbreviations can be traced through the dictionaries of
abbreviations listed below.
Law journals are shelved in alphabetical order in the law library. Occasionally you may
need to refer to a journal held in another part of the library or in our offsite store.
Details of the location and holdings of periodicals taken by UCL Library are included on
Explore. Many journals are also available online via Explore.
The Teaching Collection
As well as books and journals the Library holds a collection of photocopies of important
and heavily used articles, book chapters and case reports deposited by your lecturers.
This is called the Teaching Collection and is kept with the short loan collection in the
issue desk area. To use an item from the Collection first look up its title on Explore to
find out its number.
Dictionaries
Legal dictionaries define words and phrases, give brief explanations of legal concepts
and institutions and may contain additional information such as lists of legal
abbreviations. The major English legal dictionary, in 2 volumes plus supplement, is
Jowitt's Dictionary of English Law. There are also a number of small inexpensive
dictionaries, intended for students, such as The Law Student’s Dictionary and Osborn's
Concise Law Dictionary (all these dictionaries are shelved in the Law Reference area
at LAW A 2 : M 10).
Cane & Conaghan’s New Oxford Companion to Law (LAW A 2 OXF) is arranged like a
dictionary but contains longer informative articles.
In addition to these explanatory dictionaries, there are also two important interpreting
dictionaries which list words or phrases that have been defined by the courts or in
legislation. Both are multi-volume works updated regularly by supplements:
20

Stroud's Judicial Dictionary (LAW A 2 : M 10 STR)

Words and Phrases Legally Defined (LAW A 2 : M 10 WOR)
Dictionaries of Abbreviations
The Library contains two general dictionaries of legal abbreviations shelved at
LAW A 2 : A 4.

Raistrick's Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations is the most
comprehensive. (There is another copy of this at the Enquiry Desk.)

Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations Used in American Law Books is
another comprehensive list which, although American, includes UK and
Commonwealth abbreviations.
However, a particular abbreviation can often refer to a number of different law reports
or journals (e.g. Raistrick lists 14 different journals and reports with the abbreviation
CLR) and as both these dictionaries include many foreign and obscure citations, they
can sometimes be confusing to use. Shorter lists of abbreviations are contained in
many student dictionaries.
A free online database of legal abbreviations has been produced by Cardiff University
Library, called the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations. It is available at:
http://www.legalabbrevs.cardiff.ac.uk/ and can be searched by title of publication or
abbreviation.
Encyclopedias
Encyclopedias contain up-to-date comprehensive surveys, either of the law generally
or of the law relating to a particular subject. They are published primarily for
practitioners and not students.
The leading encyclopedia, covering the whole of English law, is Halsbury's Laws.
This is published in 56 volumes and arranges material under broad subject headings
(e.g. Criminal Law, Negligence). It is kept up-to-date by annual and monthly
supplements. This is a useful resource when you are looking at an unfamiliar area of
law. It is also available on the Lexis®Library subscription database.
As well as this general encyclopedia the Library has many specialised looseleaf
encyclopedias, shelved with the book collection, e.g. Garner’s Environmental Law,
shelved with the environmental law textbooks at E 80 GAR. These typically contain the
Acts, S.I.s and other material such as EU directives relating to the subject plus a
general statement of the law, and because they are looseleaf they are usually more upto-date than the textbooks.
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Digests
Digests contain summaries of cases and/or notes of legal developments, arranged by
subject. The two English digests are Current Law and The Digest both described in
the section on Indexes to Cases above.
Note that Current Law summarizes all new developments in the law and can be used
to keep up not only with new cases but also new statutes, statutory instruments, etc. It
includes some additional useful items such as a table showing the progress of Bills
through Parliament. Older material can be traced through the annual volumes or
Current Law Year Books.
Periodical Indexes
If you are writing an extended essay you will be expected to identify journal articles on
your particular topic. It’s not necessary to look through every issue of every journal
held in the Law Library to find these; instead, it’s more effective to use a periodical
index. These index the contents of a wide range of journals and can be searched by
subject, title or author. Many also include summaries or abstracts of the articles
themselves, which can be useful when deciding whether the article is relevant to your
research.
These indexes are available online as part of the major online services to which we
subscribe. Details of the most useful are given on p.23 below.
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ONLINE SOURCES
Most of the primary sources you will need to consult during your course are available
online through the legal databases to which the Library subscribes. The majority of
these can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection, using your UCL
computer account user id and password. They can also be accessed via the UCL
wireless network, which covers the Main Library in the Wilkins Building where the Law
collection is housed.
All of the resources described below can be accessed from the Library’s databases
webpage at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/electronic-resources/databases.
Comprehensive Commercial Services
Online access to the full text of the most important series of law reports, as well as
legislation and some journals, is provided by two very large competing commercial
services: Westlaw UK and Lexis®Library.
Major series of law reports, such as the Law Reports, English Reports and Weekly Law
Reports are available on both Westlaw UK and Lexis®Library.
Westlaw UK contains the following material:
 Law report series, including some not available elsewhere: Common Market
Law Reports and European Human Rights Reports
 Statutes in force from 1267 to the present
 Statutory instruments in force from 1948 onwards
 Nearly 100 full text journals, including: Criminal Law Review, Law Quarterly
Review, and Public Law
 Legal textbooks such as Archbold Criminal Pleading, Renton & Brown Criminal
Procedure and the White Book.
It also contains information from the official European Union database Eur-Lex,
including the text of cases heard in European Court of Justice and General Court, as
well as directives and regulations (legislation from the European Union).
Other parts of the service include cases and legislation from the US and a number of
other foreign countries, which are available in the Westlaw International section of the
database.
Westlaw UK includes information from the Current Law monthly digest and case and
legislation citators (see p.9) and as such can be used as an index and citator for cases
and legislation.
Lexis®Library contains a similar range of material to Westlaw, along with series not
available elsewhere such as the All England Law Reports, Industrial Relations Law
Reports, and The Times Law Reports. It has a similar range of legislation and
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European Union and international materials as well as a wide range of encyclopedias
and reference works such as Halsbury’s Law.. It is particularly useful for the transcripts
of unreported cases, which it has from 1980 onwards.
There are many legal practitioner texts on Lexis®Library under the Commentary tab,
including Harvey on Industrial Relations, Hill & Redman’s Law of Landlord and Tenant
and Clark, Hall and Morrison on Children.
Lexis®Library has a sister service called Nexis® which contains the full text of local,
national and international newspapers as well as detailed company and market
information.
Other Online Primary Sources
Justis provides access to electronic versions of the State Trials and the International
Law Reports.
United Nations Treaty Collection contains the full text of international treaties
published in the League of Nations Treaty Series (1920-1944) and the United Nations
Treaty Series (1946-).
Indexes and Abstracts
As well as databases containing the full text of cases, legislation, journals and
newspapers, there are also a number of databases which index the contents of
journals, law reports and other legal literature. These can be very useful when you are
researching material for assignments, essays and moots. The ones you need to be
aware of are:
Legal Journals Index: part of Westlaw UK, this index covers all legal journals
published in the UK from 1986 and is the best source for tracing articles from British
journals.
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books: indexes US legal journals as well as the
leading titles from the UK and other Commonwealth countries from 1978 onwards.
Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals: covers periodicals from across the world dealing
with foreign, international and comparative law from 1960 onwards.
JustCite: is a comprehensive online index of UK and European legal information, and
is particularly useful for locating case law. It covers material from a variety of sources
and provides links to documents, including full-text, available in other databases.
In addition to indexes specifically for law, there are a number of other databases which
include legal journals as part of more general coverage. These sources can be
particularly useful for identifying relevant material in non-law publications. The most
useful are:
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IBSS: International Bibliography of the Social Sciences: indexes journal articles
and book chapters in social science subjects including anthropology, geography,
economics and political sciences from 1951.
Social Science Citation Index: indexes 2,697 social science journals from 1900 via a
service called Web of Science.
Electronic Journals (e-journals)
Many of the journals we have in print are also available electronically in full text. To see
the full list of e-journals click on the E-journals option on the top black bar on Explore.
Both Westlaw and Lexis®Nexis contain the full text of a wide range of US and UK law
journals. Consult the contents pages of each database for a list of what is available.
Internet Material
Finally, in addition to the subscription services, there is a lot of very useful legal
information available free on the internet, including:
British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) website http://www.bailii.org
Contains mainly recent material, but older material is regularly being added. It is
particularly useful for case law, including:
 House of Lords and Supreme Court judgments
 Transcripts of Court of Appeal judgments
 Judgments from higher courts and tribunals
 Case law from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Europe and Jersey
The website also contains the Law Commission reports and legislation. However, the
legislation on this website is as originally passed, and has not been amended.
An even wider range of the most useful and high quality academic law websites can be
searched for on the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Eagle-i website at
http://ials.sas.ac.uk/eaglei/project/eiproject.htm.
There are many free current awareness resources on the internet, such as the one
produced by the Inner Temple Library (a library for barristers) at
http://www.innertemplelibrary.com/
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FINAL NOTES
This guide describes a number of sources which you may not need now but which will
be useful later this year or in subsequent years. Don't throw this guide away once you
have finished the "Legal Method” course.
Legal literature is complex: don't panic if you don't understand everything once!
This guide does not cover all aspects of legal material and library research. Further
information, including practical guidance on how to use the more complex legal
reference works, can be found in books, shelved at LAW A 9. The following are
particularly helpful:

Holborn, Guy. Butterworths Legal Research Guide (2nd ed.) 2001

Clinch, Peter. Using a Law Library (2nd ed.) 2001

Thomas, Philip. Dane & Thomas: How to Use a Law Library (4th ed.) 2001

Finch, Emily and Fafinski, Stefan. Legal Skills (4th ed.) 2013
If you have difficulty finding books or information in the Library, please do not hesitate
to ask library staff for help.
The Law Librarian is Janet Horslen. She can be contacted by email at
j.horslen@ucl.ac.uk, by telephone on 020 7679 2588, or in person in her office
Tuesday to Thursday 09.30am – 4.30pm.
JH
July 2015
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