Finding cases from the United Kingdom

Teresa Miguel — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:15:00 GMT

Cases from the UK are published in many reporters, both official and unofficial, and online in several databases. The new Bluebook (19th ed.) gives the names of the reporters considered authoritative and a list of acceptable online services. In fact, for cases after 2001, a neutral citation from BAILII, the British and Irish Legal Information Institute, is required (T2.42, p.408). An example of a neutral citation is, Glasgow Corp. v. Central Land Board, [1955] UKHL 7.

Cases from England and Wales are often sought after for sourcecites and general research. As explained in the Bluebook (T2.42.1, p.414), cases after 1865 are published in and should be cited to the official Law Reports, which consists of many different sets of reporters including

Appeal Cases (A.C.) - KD275.4
- Related earlier reporters in this series are:
  - English and Irish Appeal Cases - KD275 .L39
  - Scotch and Divorce Appeals - KD275.2 .L39
  - Privy Council Appellate - KD275.3 .L39
Chancery Division (Ch.) - KD276.3 .L39
Queen's Bench (Q.B.) - KD277.7 .L39
King's Bench (K.B.) - KD277.7 .L39 (same as above, but when a King reigned)
Probate Division (P.) - KD279.3 .L39
Family Division (Fam.) - KD279.4 .L39 (replacing Probate Division in 1972)

If the case cannot be found in Law Reports, you can use the following reporters, in order of preference:

Weekly Law Reports (W.L.R.) - KD282
All England Law Reports (All E.R.) - KD288 .A64

There are still more print reporters that can be used if needed, such as:

Lloyd's Law Reports (L.L.R.) - KD1815 .A2 .L57
Human Rights Law Reports - UK Cases (H.R.L.R.) - KD4080 .A38 H86
UK Human Rights Reports (U.K.H.R.R.) - we do not have
International Law Reports (I.L.R.) - KZ199 .I58

Finally, you can find cases from the United Kingdom in several databases:

BAILII (free)
Lawtel (subscription)
Justis (subscription) - also includes access to International Law Reports (I.L.R.)
Westlaw and Lexis (Passwords)

As always, please feel free to see a librarian for assistance in this complicated quest. Also see this research guide.

The Old Bailey Proceedings, 1674-1913, Go Online

Evelyn Ma — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:39:00 GMT

London's Old Bailey Criminal Court cases 1674-1913 are now searchable online. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey,1674-1913 include transcripts of 197,745 criminal trials held at London's Central Criminal Court between the years 1674-1913. Other than chronicling a string of sensational trials in London in the period, the free website was also billed as "the largest single source of searchable historical information about British lives that has ever been published". See full story here.

Yale Law Library - Foreign and International Blog : United Kingdom

Finding cases from the United Kingdom

The Old Bailey Proceedings, 1674-1913, Go Online