British Secondary Legal Resources in United Kingdom

Textbooks

A good starting point for legal research can be UTCat, the library catalog, for references to textbooks on your topic. Do a keyword search to identify titles of textbooks on your topic. If you find a title on point, check the table of contents or index of the book to see if there is any discussion of your legal problem.

Although never binding in court, some textbooks are written by scholars of outstanding reputation and prestige, and consequently engender considerable judicial respect. Such textbooks include certain core British titles such as Chitty on Contracts , soon due out in its 28th edition, or Salmond and Heuston on the Law of Torts , currently in its 21st edition. In evaluating a text, it is useful to consider, among other things, the purpose for which it was published, the reputation of the author and publisher, the organization, scope and depth of research in the book, its currency and its reviews.

Legal Journals

Law journals are a good source of information since academics, lawyers or other experts in their field usually write the journal articles. An easy way to find relevant journal articles is to search an index of legal periodicals, which usually allows you to search by subject, author or title. By searching various legal periodical indexes, you can find citations to full-text articles, case comments and book reviews. A relevant full-text journal article can in turn lead you to other significant sources included in its bibliography and footnotes. The Law Library website has a page devoted to finding law-related journals

Legal Journals Index

To search for articles devoted to British legal topics, search the Legal Journals Index available via Westlaw (to U of T Law students only). This journal index covers all journal titles that are published in the United Kingdom that frequently contain articles on legal topics. It has a subject, author, case, and legislation index.

Other Online Indexes Relating To British Law

There are two other online legal journal indexes that provide some coverage of British legal issues and articles, although their scope is geared mainly toward American material. The first index is also available on the web for U of T community members and is called the Index to Legal Periodicals and Books . This index uses the same search, software, for example, as the Index to Canadian Legal Literature .

The second legal journal index is called Legal Trac , and it allows searching by subject or keyword.

Legal Encyclopedias

Legal encyclopedias are a useful starting point for research. They provide a good overview of the law by organizing the law into manageable topics, and they include references to relevant primary sources of law.

Halsbury’s Laws of England

Halsbury’s Laws of England is the classic English legal encyclopedia. It summarizes the law in essay form with citations to supporting statutes and cases in footnotes. The current edition is the fourth one, and was completed in 1986, although some of the volumes have since been reissued. There is a “Consolidated Table of Statutes” in volume 53, a “Consolidated Table of Cases” in volume 54, and a “Consolidated Index” in volumes 55 and 56 of the edition. See more detailed information about the Halsbury’s Laws of England in this legal Encyclopedia.

Case Law Digests Or Summaries

Another useful tool for finding relevant court cases are case law digests or summaries. Various publishers compile digests of cases by topic and prepare short descriptive summaries for each case, along with a citation to the full-text of the case. In England, the leading case law digest service is the Digest (burgundy in colour).

The Digest

The Digest (formerly the English and Empire Digest ) is a digest of the case law of England to date. It also includes cases from the courts of Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, and the West Indies. The arrangement of titles used by Halsbury’s Laws of England is generally followed, and each section of cases is keyed to the fourth edition of Halsbury’s Law of England or Halsbury’s Statutes of England. See more detailed information about the Digest in England in this legal Encyclopedia.