Full text law reports from the most authoritative sources, beginning in the Middle Ages, including:

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1 A guide to Lexis Library Introduction This guide will introduce the content and take you through the steps of carrying out effective searches using the Content Specific Search Forms to search for cases, legislation, commentary, forms and precedents and journals on the Lexis Library database. Following the numbered steps will demonstrate the navigation and functionality of Lexis Library. It is not intended that you follow this guide through from beginning to end rather that you refer to it and follow individual sections for help when searching. What is Lexis Library? Lexis Library contains case law, legislation, journals, commentary, and forms and precedents. Most of the UK material is full text, but some items contain just brief citation and abstract information. It also contains information on EU law and International materials. What law materials are available? Case law Full text law reports from the most authoritative sources, beginning in the Middle Ages, including: ICLR Law Reports All England Law Reports English Reports There are around 70 other case reports including: Times Law Reports Estates Gazette Law Reports Industrial Relations Law Reports Legislation Contains the full, amended text of all UK Public and General Acts since 1266 that are currently in force. Legislation that has been recently enacted but is not yet in force is also included. Public and General Acts that are no longer in force do not appear in full text but, if the Act ceased to have effect on or after 1 January 1999, a note explains why the enactment no longer applies. Historical versions are available via back to It also contains the full, amended text of all public general SIs that are currently in force from the Westminster Parliament and Welsh Assembly that relate to England and Wales.

2 International legislation Law reports from the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance and the European Court of Human Rights. Cases are taken from the Official Journal C Series. Legislation from the Official Journal L Series beginning Treaties between Member States beginning Commentary Commentary sources include Halsbury's Laws of England, a key source which provides the only narrative statement on the law of England and Wales and a variety of legal practice Bulletins, Updates and Newsletters that may be of particular interest to Legal Practice Course students. Forms and Precedents Contains the online version of the Encyclopeadia of Forms and Precedents. Journals The primary key to finding out what journal articles are available on a topic is to use a journals index and Westlaw UK is the only database that contains: The Legal Journals Index The Financial Journals Index (although this is no longer updated) The UK Journals Index in Lexis Library indexes fewer UK journals (only back to 1995) whereas the Legal Journals Index from Westlaw UK fully indexes over 450 journals, back to 1986, therefore to do a good literature review use the LJI on Westlaw UK and Lexis Library. Lexis Library includes the full text of journal titles for which they own the copyright, published by LexisNexis Group and other third party providers. News Under the News link there are a good range of UK broadsheets, tabloid and regional newspapers which can only be found in Lexis Library (not in Westlaw UK).

3 Current Awareness, History, Saved Searches and Alerts The current awareness service is searchable and browsable and is updated daily, but only within 5 weeks of publication, it covers only around 16 sources. It is possible to see your search History which is useful if you want to back track through a search session. It is also possible to set up Alerts, you choose the type of information, the subject area and frequency and information will be ed to you. Saved searches are useful if you have formulated a specific search using your own keywords and wish to run it again in the future without the need to remember how you formulated the search first time around. Getting Started 1 Go to the Library homepage select the link to FINDit. 2 Log in using your UNI username and password, if prompted. 3. Select Find Database. 4. Use the Databases A-Z list, scroll to L for LexisLibrary or choose Databases by Subject Law. 5. Click on Connect to access.

4 Case Law You can use Lexis Library to find: A specific case reported or unreported Cases discussing a point of law Whether a case has been referred to (cited) in any other cases Cases which refer to a particular statute or section of a statute Case Law - Searching and Browsing 1. Select the Cases link to get to this page 3. Select Search 2. To find all reports of a specific case enter the Case Name e.g. donoghue and stevenson into the search box as above Alternatively to find a specific report of a case you can also enter the case Citation e.g. [1932] AC 562. To find all cases that refer to (cite) a particular case enter the party names using a connector in the Search Terms box, e.g. donoghue W/8 stevenson. To find cases that cite a particular piece of legislation enter the name of the Act and/or section of the Act in the Search Terms box. To find several cases on a particular point of law enter keywords in the Search Terms box e.g. consumers food liability.

5 Search Tips: Leave out the correct formatting of citations, just enter the citation without brackets, capital letters, full stops etc and Lexis Library will match it to the nearest citation. Cases - Search Results 1. Results are presented in reverse chronological order, but you can Sort results by: court, relevance etc 2. You can Preview the full text or add to My Documents. 3. Select the party names link in the Case Search result. This Case Search result is anonline equivalent of a search in the printed Current Law Case Citator. The Case Overview result is very useful and provides the procedural history (Cases referring to this case and Cases considered by this case), keywords and summaries for the case in (Catchwords & Digest). It also uses a simple traffic light signal system, shown in the

6 right-hand column, to illustrate how the case has been treated e.g. affirmed, applied or reversed etc. You can choose to Hide Signals or click Signal Help to access definitions of what each one means. 4. Select [1932] AC 562. This will show the full text In a full case report result: 6. The pagination appears in grey at the bottom right of each page meaning the exact pagination of the original printed report is retained, it can therefore be cited in court and academic work. 1. Go back to the Cases page. Case Law - Browsing

7 1. Back at the Cases search screen you can also Browse for information. 2. An alphabetical list of law report titles will be displayed, select one and then a list of years will be displayed, select one and then each case in that year for that law report will appear. Restricting your Search Date This is particularly useful if you are retrieving too many results and need to manage information overload. At the Cases screen it is possible to narrow down your search to a particular point in time by using the Judgment Date dropdown menu. You can choose from several options and select a specific date or a date range. 1. Try searching for all cases referring to donoghue and stevenson (in the Enter Search Terms box put donoghue W/8 stevenson). There should be around 1424 results. 2. Go back to the Search page and alter the Judgment Date to Previous two years and notice how many results you have now. There should be far fewer. Search within results This search box appears to the side of your results list and is another useful tool for narrowing down your search and making it more precise. 3. Enter contributory negligence in the Search Within Results. There should be around 2 results,that are more specific to that topic now. Legislation You can use Lexis Library to find: A specific statute/si or part thereof (current version)

8 Legislation on a particular topic (current version) Historical versions (available by ) 1. Select the Legislation link to get to this 3. Select Search 2. To find a specific Act or SI enter the title of it into the Legislation Title search box e.g Human Rights Act 1998 To find legislation on a particular topic enter keywords into the Search Terms box. To find a piece of legislation use the Provision or Part or Schedule box. Search Tip: If you enter keywords with no connectors they are automatically linked with the AND connector. E.g. if you enter fair trial Lexis Library will search for the keyword fair AND the keyword trial, if you wish to search for this as a phrase you have to enter it in quotes fair trial. Doing this will make your search more precise and you will retrieve fewer but more accurate results. More information about terms and connectors can be found by selecting the Search Tips link. Legislation - Search Results

9 1. Note results are ranked by Acts in Source Order. 2. Select the top link in results 3. To view the full text of an Act select the pdf link. After viewing close the pdf window Note that the Browse TOC/Index column lists all the provisions within a piece of legislation allowing you to link directly to any section, paragraph etc. If a provision has been repealed this information is displayed by an ellipsis... going into the section will show you what new legislation has repealed the older provision. You can also navigate using the next or previous arrow buttons at the top and bottom of each individual part. Legislation - Browsing

10 Back at the Legislation search screen you can also Browse for legislation by selecting the Browse tab. An alphabetical list of legislation sources will be displayed, select one (e.g UK Parliament Acts) and then a list of letters will be displayed, select one, then drill down further and each act beginning with that letter will appear. Journals You can use Lexis Library to find: Basic searching: A specific journal article Journal articles about a particular topic Journal articles which have referred to (cited) case law Journal articles which have referred to a particular statute or section of a statute Journals Searching and Browsing 1. Select the Journals link to get to this page. 3. Select Search. 2. To find a specific journal article that you already know details of enter brief details into the Article Title and Author boxes. E.g. new beginning and author ludlow. To find all articles on a particular topic enter your keywords in the Search Terms search box.

11 To find articles referring to (citing) a particular case, enter the party names in the Search Terms search box. To find articles referring to a particular piece of legislation, enter the name of the Act or section in the Search Terms search box. Search Tips: Leave out and between each keyword, this is automatically implied To insist on a phrase use quotation marks e.g. professional conduct. More information about terms and connectors can be found by selecting the Search tips link. To conduct a good search of the journal literature also use the Legal Journals Index in the Westlaw UK database. There area limited number oftitles covered in Lexis Library. (To track down articles that are not full text in Lexis Library, search FINDit e-journals for the journal title as it may be available from another supplier, if not check Library Catalogue as it may be on the shelves in the library, if not then send for it on inter-library loan.) Journals Search Results 1. Note that if there is only one article the full text of the article appears on the right and it is possible to use the Browse TOC/Index to navigate through the issue of that journal. If you are searching for articles about a topic and there is more than one result, a results list will appear first of all and you will need to select the one that you want.

12 1. The journal citation at the top in black, you should note this for your research trails. 2. Your search terms are highlighted There is no keyword or subject indexing and no abstract in Lexis Library to help you quickly ascertain what the article is about as appears in the Legal Journals Index in the Westlaw UK. Print, Save and These icons appear on most results search screens Select the relevant link, documents can be downloaded or ed as Word or pdf files, if ing don t forget to enter a subject line that means something to you as the will be sent directly from Lexis Library. Any questions or feedback about this guide can be ed to Sue House sue.house@southwales.ac.uk