Finding UK Legal Information

This tutorial provides you with the foundations for locating UK legal information at Loughborough University. You can work through the tutorial sequentially or jump to the sections that are most relevant to your needs.

By the end of this tutorial you will be able to:

1. Appreciate why you need to identify the jurisdiction for the law that you are searching.

2. Locate UK cases by name or citation within law reports.

3. Identify key sources for locating UK cases by subject.

4. Find and update UK legislation.

5. Find legal journal articles by subject.

Before you start...

Case Law

The UK is a what is called a "Common Law" country. Common Law is defined by the OED Online [accessed 26/01/2007] as:

It means that the law is built on the judgments that have been given in previous cases. Judges can apply or consider previous judgments in cases which cover similar points of law. Or they can distinguish between, what might appear to be similar, cases, by pointing out that there are different legal aspects to be considered in the more recent case. This ensures that the law is constantly adapting to the country's changing needs.

It is important to understand this because often legal databases allow you to look at the history of a particular case and this indicates whether a judgment is 'good' law. Good law means that the judgment is still being regarded as relevant as a precedent and has not been overturned or revoked by a subsequent ruling by a higher court or a later judgment.

The resources below explain more about the system and how to trace cases.

Legislation

There are two main types of UK legislation: Primary and Secondary.

Primary legislation refers to Statutes, of which again there are two types: Public General Acts and Local and Private Acts. The vast majority of statutes that you will need to find are Public General Acts, which are what this tutorial will discuss.

Secondary legislation includes regulations and orders, which are usually released as Statutory Instruments (SIs).

Finding Journal Articles

Citing legal materials

Further information

The following books explain the process of finding legal information in more depth:

Clinch, P (2001) Using a law library: a student's guide to legal research skills, 2^nd ed., Blackstone.

Thomas, P (2001) Dane and Thomas How to use a law library: an introduction to legal skills, 4^th ed., Sweet & Maxwell.