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Law (HE): English Legal System

English Legal System

Textbooks for the Legal System.  ​Textbooks explain the fundamentals of the law.  ELC books are found in the Law section on the Ground floor of Hockney Building.  The class number is 349.42.  Recommended textbooks include Elliott & Quinn's English Legal System, Unlocking the Legal System (both available as e-books) and Walker & Walker's English Legal System. Click here for a link to your online reading list. 
 
Textbooks for Legal Skills. Books on legal reasoning such as Unlocking Legal Learning and Holland & Web Learning Legal Rules are useful to understand how to study, research, and understand the law. The class numbers are 340.07 and 340.1
 
Case Books. Case books explain the law through a selection of the key cases of the subject, illustrating legal principles and how decisions are made.  The key casebooks for ELP are Smith & Keenan’s English Law: text and cases, and Zander, Cases and Materials on the English Legal System.
 
Reference Books. Reference books cannot be taken out of the Library.  These include the New Oxford Companion to the Law, a concise guide to the legal system, and Halsbury’s Laws, a multi-volume encyclopaedia. Yearbooks provide a summary of all cases, legislation and other developments during one year, organised by subject.  Titles are Current Law Yearbook, All England Annual Review, and Halsbury’s Laws Annual Abridgement.
 
Case reports. Law reports are one of the primary sources of English Law, so it is important that you consult the full text of key cases, and don’t just rely on summaries in textbooks.  Law Reports publish the key cases in all aspects of law including the English Legal System, in bound volumes arranged by year. Hockney Library holds the All England Law Reports, and the historical set of reports The English Reports are in the Moot court.  All these, plus the main set of law reports called The Law Reports, and for specialist reports, are available via LexisLibrary or Westlaw.  
 
Journals and Newspapers. Journals provide commentary on cases, and advanced discussion of legal issues.  They are published weekly, monthly or quarterly, and the majority are now available online. Recommended titles include Cambridge Law Journal, Law Quarterly Review, Modern Law Review and New Law Journal.
 
Electronic Databases. These provide access to the full text of journal articles, law reports and legislation.  You will be expected to start using these early on, so there are guides and tutorials available on the Law Resources Moodle page.  You should try to become familiar in particular with LexisLibrary and Westlaw UK.

Useful Databases