Sources of UK case law
Most case law is not freely available in the UK. Cases are reported in series of law reports; these are series produced by different publishers, and contain a transcript of the judgment as well as some additional information and analysis.
Law reports are considered to be more authoritative and valuable than the transcript of the judgment - so you should cite a law report, rather than just the transcript, whenever you can!
At Goldsmiths, you can access UK law reports through Westlaw and Lexis Library. We subscribe to the ICLR reports and the Weekly Law Reports on Westlaw (as well as some other more specialised series), and the All England Law Reports on Lexis.
Some transcripts of judgments are available on BAILII. The Supreme Court makes its judgments available on its website. Selected decisions of the Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal are available on Gov.UK. Remember, though, that you should use a law report version if you can.
Case law from the Court of Justice of the European Union is available on EUR-LEX.
- Westlaw This link opens in a new windowWestlaw is our primary resource for UK and EU Law and a number of international jurisdictions. It contains current and historic legislation and case law and has a very searchable journals index with many key titles in full text. It also contains its own topic guides to law and hosts the main legal dictionaries plus many other legal books. A video guide to the resource can be found here.
Partially in Library Search - Lexis Library This link opens in a new windowLexis Library contains current and historic UK and EU legislation and case law including the All England Law reports. It includes the very respected encyclopaedia, Halsbury’s Laws of England and many key legal journals and textbooks. Video guides to using the resource can be found here.
Not in Library Search - BAILII This link opens in a new windowBAILII is the database of the British and Irish Legal Information institute. It includes a large amount of primary materials for the UK and Ireland, ie legislation and case law, including many unreported cases and employment tribunal decisions. It also contains links to similar databases for many other jurisdictions around the world. A video guide to the resource can be found here.
Not in Library Search - EUR-Lex This link opens in a new windowEur-Lex is the official source of EU law – case law, legislation, treaties and the Official Journal.
Not in Library Search - Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations This link opens in a new windowUse this tool to search for the full title of a legal abbreviation. But if you can't find your abbreviation there, try Raistrick.
Not in Library Search
Case law citations
Law reports have abbreviations that are used in citation. You can find these on the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations.
A typical citation in OSCOLA might look like:
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562
The date refers to the year the law report was published, and the abbreviation refers to the law report series - in this case, the Law Reports, Appeal Cases.
Since 2001, UK cases have also been given a neutral citation. This is a unique identifier given to the case by the Courts and Tribunals Service and looks like:
[2021] UKSC 5
The date is the year the judgment was handed down - this might not be the same year as the law report citation. The court is given as an abbreviation - this one is from the Supreme Court. And the number is the case number. If a case has a neutral citation, in OSCOLA this goes before the law report in your citation:
Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5, [2021] 4 All E.R. 209
Which law report?
Some particularly important cases are reported in more than one series of law reports. You should always try to use the most authoritative version available to you.
The most authoritative law reports in the UK are the reports published by the Incorporated Council for Law Reporting (ICLR). These are often just called "The Law Reports" and are available on Westlaw. They cover all areas of law and are currently split into four 'divisions':
- Appeal Cases (AC) – covers decisions of the Supreme Court (formerly the House of Lords)
- King’s Bench (KB) – covers common law decisions from the High Court, Court of Appeal and the Court of Justice of the European Union - note that some will appear as QB as this was known as Queen's Bench while Elizabeth II was the reigning monarch!
- Chancery (CH) – covers chancery matters (i.e. cases involving wills, trusts and intellectual property etc)
- Family (Fam) – covers family law
If you can't find the case in the Law Reports, you can try the Weekly Law Reports (WLR) which are also available on Westlaw, or the All England Law Reports (All ER) which are on Lexis.
If it isn't in any of those, you can use a specialist series of law reports. These usually focus on one particular area of law. Examples include the Medical Law Reports (Med LR), Lloyd's Law Reports (Lloyd's Rep) and Reports of Patent Cases (RPC).
On Westlaw and Lexis Library, law reports are listed in order of authority, from most to least authoritative, so you will always be able to see which version to use.
Remember, if you don't know what a law report's abbreviation is, use the Cardiff Index!
