LexisLibrary provides a very useful starting off point for those carrying out research into UK law, and it also offers selected sources of material for researching the law of other countries.
We are often asked how LexisLibrary differs from Westlaw, and whether legal researchers need to use both LexisLibrary and Westlaw. In short, each database is owned by a different publisher and – whilst there is some overlap in content – each of LexisLibrary and Westlaw contain significant amounts of unique content (e.g. practitioner texts and journals) and it is important that legal researchers consult both databases.
Here is how the LexisLibrary database can help you with legal research:
- It provides access to a large number of full-text UK law reports, including the All England Law Reports. Court judgments are uploaded to LexisLibrary very quickly after they are handed down, and a handy ‘Appeal Tracker’ feature allows you to track the appeal status of significant cases.
- LexisLibrary allows you to view both current and historical versions of UK Acts of Parliament. You can also track the progress of public Bills using LexisLibrary’s ‘Bill Tracker’ option.
- Our subscription to LexisLibrary gives City students and staff access to many practitioner works and legal texts. Some LexisLibrary highlights are: Halsbury’s Laws of England (an invaluable starting point for research into both broad-based queries and also more esoteric points of law!); Harvey on Industrial Relations and Employment law; Clarke Hall & Morrison on Children; Goode: Consumer Credit Law and Practice; and Tolley’s Insolvency Law Service.
- LexisLibrary allows you to access selected international sources, e.g. cases, legislation and journals from overseas jurisdictions. Lexis have produced a handy guide to help with this.
If you are at City and would like to know more about how to get the most from LexisLibrary, you can make an appointment with one of our Law Librarians, and we would be very happy to help!