LibGuides: Law: Finding Cases

HOW IS CASE LAW REPORTED?

Watch brief films from the ICLR on how law reports are written and how important they are to the legal profession:

A Tale of Two Citations
This short film features two barristers. One of them serenely competent and well-prepared with the proper law reports to support her case, and the other rather less well-organised, chaotically downloading and printing transcripts from the internet, much to the judges irritation.
Find that Case!
A brief introduction to case law research using both online databases and hard copy reference works.
Making Legal History
Follow one of the ICLR law reporters, Ben Urdang, as he goes to court, attends an important case, and explains all the different stages in the preparation of a law report and its eventual publication in hard copy and on the internet.
The ICLR YouTube Channel
Further films from the ICLR (Incorporated Council of Law Reporting).
What's the difference between a law report and a transcript?
Curious Case of the Judgment Enhancers
Daniel Hoadley of the ICLR explains case law reporting.

WHERE DO I FIND UK & EU CASE LAW?

Case law reports from the UK courts can be found in the 'Cases' sections of the legal databases:

Lexis+ UK
Contains The Law Reports from the ICLR, the All England Law Reports, the Weekly Law Reports as well as several other important general and subject specialist law reports series. EU cases can be found under the 'International Cases' link.
Westlaw UK
Contains The Law Reports from the ICLR and the Weekly Law Reports as well as several other important general and subject specialist law reports series. Find EU cases in the separate 'EU' section.

USEFUL WEBSITES

WHERE DO I FIND THE MEANING OF LEGAL ABBREVIATIONS?

Go to the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations website.

You can search here in two ways:

by abbreviation to find the full law report title
by full title to find the preferred form of abbreviation

Treforest Library at CAT.2 REF 340.03 RAI.

Raistrick's Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations

WHERE DO I FIND LAW REPORTS IN PRINT?

In the Treforest Library printed law reports are available in CAT.5.

Case law reports are arranged alphabetically by title.

HOW DO I FIND A CASE LAW REPORT IN THE LIBRARY?

If you have a full case citation e.g. R v Morrison [2003] 1 WLR 1859

Identify what WLR stands for
If you don't know use the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations or Raistrick's to find out
Check the library catalogue to see if we subscribe in print, or
Go directly to CAT.5 where the law reports are arranged alphabetically by title
Look along the shelves until you see the series of reports you are looking for
Look for the year on the spine, then volume number, then the page number
Read the headnote, then read the whole case to understand the legal arguments

If you only have the party names e.g. DPP v Majewski

Use the Current Law Case Citator to identify the full citation
Go to the volume covering the year, if you have an idea about the year the case was reported, if not
Start with the earliest volume and go through each one systematically
Look up the party names in the Table of Cases to identify the full citation details
Proceed then as from bullet point 3 above

OTHER USEFUL PUBLICATIONS FOR FINDING CASE LAW

Halsbury's Laws of England

Available online in Lexis+ UK in the 'Commentary' section. Select it from the homescreen.

This is the only complete narrative statement of the law of England and Wales providing encyclopedic definitions of each point of law with footnotes to the most significant primary sources. It is an excellent source for detailed definitions to cite in coursework assignments and is designed to enable practitioners to answer the full range of questions likely to arise in the course of practice.

The Digest: annotated British, Commonwealth & European Cases

Available in print in the Treforest library.

This provides in a summary form, the whole case law of England & Wales, together with a considerable body of cases from the courts of Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. It also includes other countries of the Commonwealth plus cases dealing with EU Law.

It gives a concise statement of the effect of each case and enables the user to know where to look and what to expect to find when the report itself is examined in full. An essential case companion to Halsbury's Laws of England, following the same classification and arrangement, but providing the reader with further detail. It may also be described as a super-index to The Law Reports and is the only index to The Law Reports 1865-1950.