The Library collects legal texts in certain specialist subject areas such as banking, commercial law and arbitration, competition, employment, insurance, professional negligence and shipping, amongst others.
We are also the specialist library for ecclesiastical law, and we offer access to a full range of legal resources for EU and American Law
For fifty years, Middle Temple Library has maintained and developed a nationally significant collection of European legal materials. The collection continues to evolve in tandem with important legislative and judicial shifts within the European Union, as well as the UK’s ever-changing relationship with it: from its membership in 1973 to its withdrawal in 2020.
The European collection is located on the third-floor in the Library and comprises the following materials:
Middle Temple Library possesses one of the largest collections of American legal materials outside the United States. This extensive collection is located on the third floor of the Library. The Middle Temple has always enjoyed a close relationship with the United States with links going back to Elizabethan times.
All of the Library’s materials (including the majority of the law reports and journal titles contained in our subscription databases) can be located by searching our online catalogue. The catalogue may be accessed online, via any of the Library's computer terminals, or by using the search box embedded in this page:
The Library subscribes to electronic journals, law reports and the legal databases listed below. Access to subscription-based resources is only available in the Library, apart from Bloomsbury Professional Online, Kluwer Arbitration, Lexis Practical Guidance and Oxford Legal Research Library which can be accessed remotely, upon application to the Library, by Middle Temple members who hold a practising certificate as a barrister in England and Wales AND are on the
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.
British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) BAILII provides access to a comprehensive collection of British and Irish legal materials, and links to similar sites worldwide
The following is a selection of sources of information about the institutions, legislation and case law of the European Union itself and portals, gateways and databases which include information from a number of Members States.
Archive of European Integration (AEI) Research materials on the topic of European integration and unification, including official European Community and European Union documents. Managed by the University of Pittsburgh.
American Bar Association A portal to resources on federal, state and international legislation, the American legal profession, legal research and business and reference information.
American Law Sources Online (ALSO) A compilation of links to free online source of US and Canadian law - covers both Federal and State legislation.
Multi-jurisdictional Resources
CommonLII The Commonwealth Legal Information Institute provides a search facility for free core legal information from the whole Commonwealth, covering 756 databases from 59 countries, including the English Reports 1220-1873.
