Law library resources

We hold a selection of databases which contain full text and abstracts of e-journals. A full list of all our databases can be found on the Databases page. 

Key databases relevant for Law are listed below: 

Business Source Ultimate offers comprehensive full-text coverage plus indexing and abstracts for the most important scholarly business journals, dating back as far as 1886. The database offers more than 1 million company profiles, more than 10 thousand case studies, over 2,000 market research reports and 2,000 peer-reviewed journals.

Euromonitor Passport provides data and insight on industries, economies and consumers worldwide, helping you to analyse market context and identify future trends.

Law Trove Law Trove provides full text access to 200 Oxford University Press (OUP) Law textbooks with simple navigation that allows you to search across the whole collection.

Lexis+ UK Lexis+ contains a range of full text legal resources, including All England Law Reports, Halsbury's Laws of England, Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents, Atkins Court Forms and key UK journals.

Please note that any material printed or downloaded from Lexis should be kept for no more than 90 days, and material should not be uploaded to Lexis itself.

Due to copyright restrictions, you need to be physically located in the United Kingdom to use Lexis.

Lexis+ UK Tutorials

Lexis+ UK Certification Materials

• Lexis+ UK Legal Research Certification

WestLaw UK provides full-text access to current and historic UK, EU and worldwide case reports and legislation. It also gives access to the Legal Journals Index, some full text law journals, and many law electronic books.

Subject areas cover UK, EU, and International Cases; UK, EU, and International Legislation. Westlaw UK includes full text of various practitioner texts including: Chitty on Contracts; Clerk and Lindsell on Torts; Civil Procedure (White Book).

You will be prompted on first use to input your name and Bath Spa email address. You are advised that this will be processed by Westlaw in accordance with their privacy policy.

Westlaw Tutorial

Westlaw Certification Materials

Basic Certification

• Training Materials
• Test

Advanced Certification

• Training Materials
• Test

   

If you're looking for a particular e-journal title, use our Journals A-Z. Note that a single e-journal title may be held in several different e-journal collections (databases). Here is a selection of relevant e-journals for Law:

• Administrative Law Review
• Law & Human Behaviour
• Law & Society Review
• Harvard Law Review
• Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy
• Law & Social Inquiry
• Law & Policy

• BAILII: you can find British and Irish case law & legislation, European Union case law, Law Commission reports, and other law-related British and Irish material
• Bills before Parliament: all Bills currently before Parliament. Any Bills which start in the Lords have [HL] in their title. Explanatory Notes and Amendments are on each Bill's individual page
• Hansard Hansard (the Official Report) is the edited verbatim report of proceedings of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Warning: NOT technically law in of itself.
• ICLR: Law Reports and Case Law search:  a not for profit organisation that was established in 1865 as the authorised publisher of the official series of The Law Reports for the Superior and Appellate Courts of England and Wales
• Judgments of the Supreme Court: (Note: the judicial function of the House of Lords was assumed by the (then) newly-formed Supreme Court of the UK on 1 October, 2009. For judgments handed down before 31 July 2009 please refer to the House of Lords or BAILII websites)
• Judgments of the House of Lords: (Note: The judicial function of the House of Lords was assumed by the (then) newly-formed Supreme Court of the UK on 1 October, 2009
• Ministry of Justice: The Justice website contains resources for legal professionals. You can find out about the Ministry of Justice and the justice system on GOV.UK
• Statute Law from legislation.gov.uk
• The National Archives: Find Case Law use this service to find, view and download judgments and tribunal decisions
• UK’s Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website

• Judgments of the ECJ: Case reports of the Court of Justice of the European Union
• Judgments of the ECtHR: Case reports of the European Court of Human Rights
• European Convention on Human Rights: Official texts, Convention & Protocols

• WorldLII: The World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) is a free, independent and non-profit global legal research facility developed collaboratively by the following Legal Information Institutes and other organisations.WorldLII provides a single search facility for databases located on the following Legal Information Institutes: AustLII; BAILII; CanLII; HKLII; LII (Cornell); and PacLII. WorldLII also includes as part of this searchable collection its own databases not found on other LIIs. These include databases of decisions of international Courts and Tribunals, databases from a number of Asian countries, and databases from South Africa (provided by Wits Law School).

Over 270 databases from 48 jurisdictions in 20 countries are included in the initial release of WorldLII. Databases of case-law, legislation, treaties, law reform reports, law journals, and other materials are included.

• Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII)
• British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII)
• Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII)
• Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII)
• Legal Information Institute (Cornell) (LII Cornell)
• Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute (PacLII)

Please speak to your tutor if you need support with OSCOLA referencing

• OSCOLA Full Instructions
• OSCOLA Quick Reference Guide
• Main OSCOLA Website
• Citing International Law: OSCOLA 2006 (4th ed does not cover international law)
• Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations: allows you to search for the meaning of abbreviations for English language legal publications, from the British Isles, the Commonwealth and the United States, including those covering international and comparative law
• Cite Them Right: all the guidance you need to reference resources in your academic work

• Law Scholarship Network @SSRN: SSRN is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of research and is composed of a number of specialized research networks. SSRN´s eLibrary provides 745,035 research papers from 346,224 researchers across 30 disciplines
• Learning Legal Rules Textbook - Online Resource Centre
• SCONUL: is a scheme which allows many university library users to borrow or use books and journals at other libraries which belong to the scheme; it covers most of the university libraries in the UK and Ireland
• Inter-Library Loans: Found a really interesting article or book that we don’t have access to? Apply for a copy from a non-Bath Spa Library here.

Take a look at the Criminology resources for further research materials to support your legal knowledge and research.