Oxford LibGuides: United Kingdom Law: Databases

Legal Databases for Holders of an Oxford SSO: 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.

Westlaw Edge 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 Edge UK 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. (On initial visit, each reader is asked to set up a personal registration - but this does not involving changing the username/password credentials.) Our subscription includes Practical Law.

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

Lexis + UK

Lexis+ UK
For online access from a device outside the University network or via eduroam, please follow https://plus.lexis.com/uk/xhome?federationidp=RXVSX459307
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

Lexis+ UK (formerly LexisLibrary) 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 Clarke Hall and Morrison on Children
Other standard practitioners' texts such as Banks on Sentence

I-law

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

The Lloyds Law Reports
Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
Dispute Resolution (selected legislation and commentary - including Briggs on Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments)

i-Law
This resource requires you to register before use.
Alternative name: I Law
Access Lloyd’s Law Reports; Lloyd’s Maritime & Commercial Law Quarterly; and Dispute Resolution service including Briggs’ Civil Jurisdiction.

Register for access using your Oxford email address. From the i-Law home page, select "Login" and then "Register here".

Access is restricted to 5 concurrent users so please log off at the end of your session.

vlex Justis

vlex Justis (formerly JustisOne)

English/UK 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)
Foreign and international law reports & transcripts

vLex Justis
Sponsorship: The Bodleian Law Library’s subscription is generously supported by Hogan Lovells. ## This resource requires you to log in with your Oxford SSO again at the homepage.
vLex Justis offers access to a range of law reports, transcripts and legislation from the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the Caribbean, and the EU. For UK case research it has extensive information relating to where cases have been cited, etc including a precedent map.

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. Also included in the service is Justis Human Rights.

To access personalisation features please set up an individual profile on the platform using a unique id and password.

Please note that apart from the titles listed above, vLex Justis includes some abstracted materials for which you will need to refer to other online services or hard copy to obtain the full text.

vLex Justis includes content formerly available via JustisOne.

HeinOnline

HeinOnline is a legal database which from a UK Law perspective is useful for its law journal collection, and Anglo-American legal historians benefit from five specialist databases Statutes of the Realm, English Reports, the Legal Classics and Selden Society Publications and the History of Early English Law.

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.

Reliable open access websites for primary sources of UK law

Legislation.gov.uk is free to anyone with access to the internet. It is maintained 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 originating from the EU as set out in Schedule 5 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (c. 16) along with corrigenda (correction slips for EU legislation) and EU Directives published up to the end of the EU Exit Implementation Period at 11:00 p.m. on 31 December 2020 ("IP completion day")

Legislation.gov.uk
Open access. Official site Use the drop down menu TYPE to limit search to public general acts or statutory instruments or browse by year etc. Excellent for original, historic version (text of act as originally promulgated) and Explanatory Notes for more recent legislation. Pay attention to the current status which is given for each act. More has further details of coverage
more...less...
All primary legislation from 1988
All secondary legislation from 1987, including UK Statutory Instruments, Scottish Statutory Instruments and Northern Ireland Statutory Rules. In addition we hold a selection of secondary legislation from 1948-1986, and selected pre-1948 Statutory Rules and Orders
Legislation originating from the EU as set out in Schedule 5 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (c. 16) along with corrigenda (correction slips for EU legislation) and EU Directives published up to the end of the EU Exit Implementation Period at 11:00 p.m. on 31 December 2020 ("IP completion day").
Most types of primary legislation (e.g. Acts, Measures, N.I. Orders in Council) are held in 'revised' form, as well as selected secondary legislation, and legislation originating from the EU:

Public General Acts of the United Kingdom Parliament (1801 to date)
Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain (1707 – 1800)
Acts of the English Parliament (1267 – 1706)
Acts of the Old Scottish Parliament (1424 – 1707)
Acts of the Scottish Parliament (1999 to date)
Acts of Senedd Cyrmu (2020 to date)
Acts of the National Assembly for Wales (2012 to 2020)
Measures of the National Assembly for Wales (2008 – 2011)
Acts of the Irish Parliament (1495 – 1800)
Acts of the Parliament of Northern Ireland (1921 – 1972)
Measures of the Northern Ireland Assembly (1974)
Orders in Council made under the Northern Ireland Acts (1972 to date) (effectively the primary legislation for Northern Ireland under direct rule, though in the form of Statutory Instruments)
Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly (2000 – 2002 and 2007 to date)
Church of England Measures (1920 to date)
UK Statutory Instruments (2018 to date)
Scottish Statutory Instruments (2018 to date)
Welsh Statutory Instruments (2018 to date)
Statutory Rules of Northern Ireland (2018 to date)
European Regulations (1958 to 31 December 2020)
European Decisions (1953 to 31 December 2020)
European Directives (1959 to 31 December 2020)

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.

From April 2022, the National Archives (TNA, UK) has begun hosting a searchable database of transcripts of judgments from the England and Wales High Court, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court and tribunal decisions from the Upper Tribunals. As of June 2023 coverage starts with decisions of 2003.

Find Case Law - Judgments and decisions from 2003 onwards
Free access to judgments and decisions of United Kingdom courts and tribunals. As of June 2023 coverage is of decisions from the superior courts of record – the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court, and the Upper Tribunals – and from 2003 onwards. The decisions are provided in the form of transcripts of judgments only: they do not include arguments of counsel nor headnotes. Holders of an Oxford SSO are reminded that Westlaw Edge UK, Lexis + UK and i-law are the subscription databases which provide them with published reports of UK judgments.

Databases for all Disciplines

Databases A-Z
Enables you to search for all the databases subscribed to by OU by name, or browse for them by all subjects/disciplines. These require an Oxford SSO for remote access - in the case of some legal database also when on the OU network.
There are also links to resources on the free web (available to anyone with access to the internet) identified by subject librarians as being particularly useful and reliable.