See our UK law research guide.
Westlaw UK and Lexis+® UK both have UK law reports from 1220 onwards, with case citators for updating purposes. The Law Reports (the leading UK series, published by ICLR) and some other series are on both Westlaw and Lexis, but for the most part the collections do not overlap: for example, only Lexis has the All England Law Reports, only Westlaw has Commercial Law Cases.
Westlaw has unreported cases from 1967 onwards; Lexis has them from 1980 onwards.
Scotland
Westlaw has numerous Scottish law reports, including Session Cases, Scots Law Times, Scottish Civil Law Reports and Scottish Criminal Case Reports; Scottish cases are also included in Westlaw's Transcripts collection.
Lexis has Session Cases, Scottish Civil Law Reports and Scottish Criminal Case Reports, a collection of case digests called Scottish Court Opinions, and Scottish Transcripts from 1981 to 2006.
Northern Ireland
Westlaw has Northern Ireland judgments in its Transcripts collection.
Lexis has the Northern Ireland Law Reports, Northern Ireland Judgments Bulletin, and a collection of transcripts called Northern Ireland Judgments.
See also: BAILII, Find Case Law and Judiciary.uk - free websites providing UK cases
Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster)
Westlaw UK has acts as amended. It also has historical versions of acts, back to 1991. Selected local acts published since 1991 are on Westlaw, as amended.
Lexis+® UK has acts as amended, but does not include Westminster acts that apply to Scotland only. It has historical versions of acts back to July 1998. Lexis has some local acts, mainly those concerning London, as amended.
vLex has the original text of acts from 1235 onwards, with lists of amendments; it also has consolidated amended versions of many acts. vLex has local acts from 1797 onwards, as enacted.
Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales
Westlaw UK and Lexis+® UK both have Scottish Parliament acts and Welsh acts/measures, as amended.
vLex has the original text of Scottish Parliament acts and Welsh acts/measures.
Northern Ireland
Westlaw has acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly, as amended. It also has Northern Ireland Orders in Council* from 1991 onwards as amended. Lexis does not have Northern Ireland legislation.
*Northern Ireland statutes published in the form of UK statutory instruments (SIs). The official versions have numbers prefixed with 'NI' as well as SI numbers, but the Westlaw versions omit the NI numbers.
vLex has the original text of acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly from 2000 onwards and the original text of Northern Ireland Orders in Council (in the Statutory Instruments collection) from about 1987 onwards.
UK statutory instruments (SIs)
Lexis has all UK SIs in force for England and Wales, as amended; it does not have UK SIs applying only to Scotland. Westlaw has all UK SIs from 1992 onwards and a large selection of older SIs, as amended; it includes UK SIs applying only to Scotland.
vLex has the original text of UK SIs from 1949 onwards, and pre-1949 SIs that were still in force on 31 December 1948 (reproduced from The Statutory Rules and Orders and Statutory Instruments Revised to December 31, 1948 (HMSO, 1949-1952)). vLex includes UK SIs applying only to Scotland.
Scottish statutory instruments (SSIs)
SSIs are post-devolution Scottish secondary legislation. Westlaw and Lexis have them as amended and vLex has them as originally made.
Welsh statutory instruments
These are statutory instruments made by the Welsh authorities since devolution. They have reference numbers prefixed 'W' as well as SI numbers, for example, 2017 No. 1274 (W. 296). Lexis and Westlaw both have English-language statutory instruments for Wales as amended; vLex has them in their original versions.
See also: BAILII and Legislation.gov.uk, free websites providing UK legislation.
If you are looking for a specific journal article
Start with the IALS Library Catalogue. Do a Title search for the name of the journal (not the article), for example, Modern Law Review. If the journal is available online, there is usually a link on the catalogue record.
If you are looking for any articles on a particular topic
Westlaw UK is a good place to start; Lexis+® UK and HeinOnline are the other main sources of law journals published in the UK.
Westlaw UK indexes most law journals published in the UK, 1986 onwards; it also covers English-language journals published on the Continent. It has full-text articles from around 120 of these journals and abstracts from hundreds more; over 800 journals used to be abstracted, but now about 215 are. The main focus is on UK law, but EU, foreign and international law are also covered.
Lexis+®UK: Journals Index Plus (under 'Journals Summaries') goes back to 1995; it used to index over 500 journals, but now appears to cover very few - for this reason it is better to select 'Journals' and search Lexis's 120 full-text journals. Most of these journals are published in the UK; the main focus is on UK law, but EU, foreign and international law are also covered.
There is some overlap between the full-text journal collections on Westlaw UK and Lexis+® UK, but many journals are only available in full-text form on one or the other: for example, Statute Law Review is on Lexis but not on Westlaw; Law Quarterly Review is on Westlaw but not on Lexis.
HeinOnline has hundreds of UK law journals, including many historical titles. It always goes back to volume 1, however old (unlike Westlaw and Lexis), but the full text of the latest volumes is often not available.
Encore Discovery can be used to search across numerous different online platforms, in a range of disciplines (not just law). However, for technical reasons it does not cover all of our e-resources: for example, it does not cover Lexis+, and it only searches Westlaw UK on site at IALS (see information page for Encore Full Text Discovery).
If you need more help...
See our research guide, Finding Journal Articles.
Encore Discovery can be used to search within our e-book holdings, but it does not cover everything that we have and one of the collections that it excludes is Westlaw Books, an important resource for UK legal research. Most of our e-books are listed on the classic IALS Library Catalogue, but the classic catalogue does not search within e-books, it only searches their titles, subject headings and (where available) contents lists.More information about e-book collections that include UK titles:
Cambridge Core: Cambridge University Press law titles
Bloomsbury Law E-book Collections: books from Hart Publishing and Bloomsbury Professional
Ebook Central: selected law e-books from a variety of publishers
Elgaronline: e-books from Edward Elgar Publishing
HeinOnline: the Legal Classics module includes UK law treatises from the 16th century onwards - module not covered by Encore
i-Law: maritime law books published by Informa - not covered by Encore
Lexis®+ UK: Halsbury's Laws of England and Wales and a few UK books - not covered by Encore
LLMC-Digital: a few 19th- and early 20th-century UK law titles are included in the Foreign Jurisdictions collection
Oxford Legal Research Library: leading works published by Oxford University Press
Oxford Scholarship Online: law e-books from Oxford University Press that are classed as postgraduate-level or higher
Taylor and Francis E-books: selected titles published by Taylor & Francis
Westlaw UK: over 350 books and encyclopedias, most of them on UK law - not covered by Encore