legal research

Law Society: Research Guides

Collection of online legal research guides provided by the Law Society Library and made freely available on its website. The guides look at finding resources such as journal articles, treaties, law reports and legislation; how to research Scottish or Irish law; and how to trace past solicitors and law firms. The guides refer to resources held by the Law Society Library, subscription and free internet resources and details of relevant organisations.

National Archives Research Guides: Criminals Courts and Prisons

National Archives staff have produced a number of research guides to assist archive users with their research. The guides are organised by subject and this guide focuses on finding historical material relating to the criminal justice system including court records, coroners’ inquests, wills, divorce and war crimes. The individual guides have information on the materials and how they can be searched. They also point to records that are available online.

National Archives Research Guides: Records for Current Legal Purposes

National Archives staff have produced a number of research guides to assist archive users with their research. The guides are organised by subject and this guide focuses on finding records that may be useful for legal purposes including birth, marriage and death certificates, changes of name and British citizenship. The individual guides have information on the materials and how they can be searched. They also point to records that are available online.

PULP Guide: Finding legal information in South Africa

Online guide to finding legal information in South Africa, edited by Shirley Gilmore and published by Pretoria University Law Press. The guide was updated in 2017 and is designed to assist legal researchers in accessing sources of South African law, explaining how to use the available print and electronic sources. The focus is on South African common law with some explanatory coverage of international and comparative law. The guide is available to download free of charge in PDF format or hardcopies may be purchased from the publisher on request.

Pretoria University Law Press (PULP)

PULP is an open-access publisher based at the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria. This page provides information on PULP’s publications along with links to free PDF versions. Titles include the most recent editions of the African Disability Rights Yearbook, African Human Rights Yearbook and the PULP Guide: Where to publish articles on the law.

International Law Blog

This blog has been compiled by a group of legal scholars, a number of whom are based at Middlesex University in London. The blog aims to provide “students, junior lawyers and scholars at different stages of their professional and academic careers with a platform to discuss issues related to international, transnational, European and comparative law”. Subject categories include international criminal law, human rights, EU law and public international law and posts date back to September 2014. Many of the posts are written as journal articles and include references.

Overview of the Mongolian Legal System and Laws

Online guide to the law and legal materials of Mongolia written by Chris Melville, Erdenedalai (Dalai) Odkhuu and Anthony Woolley of Hogan Lovells (Mongolia) LLP. The guide was published in 2015 on the Globalex website and made freely available by the Hauser Global Law School at the New York University School of Law. The authors provide an overview and history of the Mongolian legal system highlighting the main sources of law including the Constitution, legislation, international treaties and interpretations of the Supreme Court.

Law PORT

Law PORT is a collection of online, interactive training resources, aimed at postgraduate legal researchers, and made freely available by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS). The tutorials are designed to develop legal research and information literacy skills and focus on public international law. Tutorials currently available include an Introduction to OSCOLA (Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities) and an overview of the key sources for researching Customary International Law.

DART-Europe E-Theses Portal

Europe-wide portal to doctoral theses and some master’s dissertations, most of which are available in full. DART-Europe covers all subjects, including law. Users may search by keyword, or browse by university, country, year or collection. The abstracts and theses/dissertations are in many different European languages, including English. The search interface is in English.

LERU Law Portal

Portal to open access legal research material from the law faculties at twelve leading European universities. Launched in 2014, LERU includes details of more than 45,000 doctoral theses, articles, book chapters, conference papers and other documents, many of which are available to download in full. Users can browse by university or year, or search by key words; search results can be filtered by language, author, year and other criteria.

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