This selection of free legal websites is intended as a signpost for barristers, pupils and students conducting electronic research. More comprehensive lists of resources are available on the portals and gateway sites detailed below. The Library also subscribes to a number of databases, which are for in-library use only. Please refer to the E-Resources and e-books page for more information.
Although this list is updated regularly, please be aware that URLs can change without warning. Please report any broken links to the Assistant Librarian on 020 7427 4830 or by emailing library@middletemple.org.uk.
General Resources
Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations An index of over 12,000 abbreviations covering over 295 jurisdictions.
Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) Edited by the Faculty of Law, OSCOLA is designed to facilitate the accurate citation of authorities, legislation and other legal materials.
Portals & Gateways
Current Awareness A blog maintained by Inner Temple Library providing legal news and updated information on legal issues.
Venables’ Legal Resources in the UK and Ireland Includes legal sites and resources worldwide, particularly useful for new developments.
Eagle-i Maintained by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, this site provides access to global legal information arranged by topic and jurisdiction, and a list of electronic law journals.
Foreign Law Guide Project (FLAG) A collaborative internet gateway to the holdings of foreign, international and comparative law in UK university and national libraries, maintained by IALS.
Foreign Law Research (FLARE) A collaboration between the major legal research libraries in the UK working to improve access to and exploitation of foreign, comparative and international materials at the national level.
Guide to Law Online Prepared by the Law Library of Congress this is an annotated worldwide guide to sources of information on government and law, with selected links to reliable sites.
Lawlinks: Legal Information on the Internet An annotated list of web sites, maintained by the University of Kent.
Middle Temple Library Blog: A blog maintained by Library staff which features news and items of interest for barristers, pupils and students, including a list of Brexit events and highlights.
Open Access Repositories & Databases
bepress Legal Repository Offers access to working papers and pre-prints from scholars and professionals at law schools from around the world. The majority of the content is from American institutions, but covers legal topics from a variety of jurisdictions.
CORE Access to millions of open access research papers from respositories and journals worldwide. Features multiple disciplines, including law.
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) Collection of over 10,000 academic peer-reviewed ebooks, including over 600 law-related publications. Books can be searched, browsed and downloaded as PDFs.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) Independent database which contains over 12,000 open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social science and humanities. There are over 200 law or law-related journals available.
Guide to Open Access Journals A list of free, peer-reviewed business journals and journal databases, international in scope. No legal titles are listed currently, but other sources will be of use for legal research.
JURN A search-engine which indexes free and open access journals and theses in a variety of dsciplines, including the arts and humanities, science, biomedical, business and ecology related topics. Law-related material is also represented.
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) Database of over 700,000 research papers across 30 disciplines. The Legal Scholarship Network contains information on over 270,000 papers and the Criminal Justice Network has over 8000 papers. Some papers are in full-text, whereas others only the abstract is available.
Library Catalogues
British Library Covers all British Library services, including Document Supply, books, archives and manuscripts.
COPAC Union catalogue of over 100 academic, national and specialist libraries in the UK and Ireland.
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
Legal Booksellers
Dandy Booksellers: Providers of official and business publications.
TSO: Government publications and suppliers for the British Standards Institute (BSI) publications.
Wildy & Sons Ltd: Useful when searching for legal textbooks to learn more about the publication, including publication dates for upcoming titles