You have access to an extensive range of legal journals at the University. Primarily, content is available in electronic format which maximises access to content and also enhances your legal research by allowing you to quickly and easily move between case law, legislation and other commentary sources, referenced in the journal sources you are using.
The Library Search service will show you many of the journal titles that are available to you. However, there is a vast collection of worldwide legal journal titles available via Westlaw and Lexis. Not all these titles appear via the Library Search service, so see the journal guidance for these services so you know how to find all the journal materials available to you.
You will come across references to journal articles in reading lists, textbooks and from the online searching that you undertake.
References to journal articles often use legal abbreviations to refer to journal titles, e.g. Reece, H. The end of domestic violence (2006) 69 M.L.R. 770.
In this case you would need to look at the Modern Law Review journal to find your article.
You can use Library Search to look up Modern Law Review and see all the places where you have access.
Library Search lists many legal journals - but not all! If you cannot find your journal title via LibrarySearch you may need to explore the legal databases to find the content. For example, the international journals available on Lexis and Westlaw are not all discoverable via LibrarySearch - you need to log in to the databases direct to locate the journal titles.
If you need to interpret a legal abbreviation in order to search for the journal title, look at at the online Legal Abbreviations guidance.
If you are not looking fo a particular journal title but wish to find out which journals have been published in a particular area then you can search online to find relevant information.
It is worth spending some time planning your search strategy so that you can search effectively and do not become overwhelmed by lots of irrelevant results, or search too narrowly so that you find very little information.
The Search Techniques LibGuide provides lots of helpful guidance to help you plan your search strategy.
You can use Library Search for topic searching for a broad search across a range of full text resources. This can be useful, particularly at dissertation time when you are looking to search across legal and non legal materials.
However, you will also need to target the legal databases specifically for detailed searching within journal articles, as Library Search does not index the content of the large legal databases.
Westlaw is a good starting point as it includes the Legal Journals Index as well as lots of full text journal articles. You will also want to search the journals that are available on Lexis Library. Westlaw and Lexis are provided by different legal publishers so each holds unique content - in addition to content that is common across both such as legislation and major law reports.
HeinOnline and JSTOR are worth searching if you want to look at the discussion of legal issues in articles over time, as they provde access to older volumes of the journals.
Find out more about these various services via the adjacent tabs.
Westlaw is a major legal database providing full text access to UK and international case law, legislation, journals. books and other legal information sources.
It includes
Click on Journals in the top tool bar to get to the search screen. Search results will include both Abstracted Articles from the Legal journals index and Full Text Articles. If you are looking for a particular author, type in the name of the author or if you want to find a specific article, type the title of the article. therwise use the Free Text field to look for terms or phrases relating to the subject of the articles you want to find.
Searching/Browsing UK full text journals
To limit your search to articles available in full text in a particular journal click on Full Text Articles under Browse in the lower half of the screen. This allows you to search for articles across all the full text titles or to search/browse a particular individual title.
International Journals
Select International from the Region menu at the top of the screen. Use the International materials menu to search for journals from particular jurisdictions.
You can use World Journals to search across multiple jurisdictions.
Use the Lexis Guide for support.
A range of full text journals are available, as well as the Journals Index *Plus* which is a focused index of legal articles from established UK and international journals as well as from leading legal blogs.
From the Lexis+ home page, choose the Content menu and then Books & Journals to see what is available
.
The Law Journal Library in HeinOnline is a collection of thousands of law and law related journals. Coverage is from the first issue published and goes through the most current issue allowed, based on contracts with publishers. Searching can be done by title or author name, as well as full-text searching of the collection or select journal titles.
All journal titles available via HeinOnline are discoverable via the LibrarySearch service.
Use Hein's Law Journal Library: Quick Reference Guide for quick tips on browsing and searching the journal library.
Comprehensive support for HeinOnline is available via their KnowledgeBAse. HeinOnline includes many other resources, in addition to the Legal Journals Library.
JSTOR provides access to scholarly book, journal and primary sources via an easy to use search interface. You can take a look at the journal (and book) content specific to Law.
Use the How to Search JSTOR LibGuide for an introduction to the service or take a look at JSTOR's Vimeo channel for educational and instructional videos.
All journal titles available via JSTOR are also discoverable via the LibrarySearch service.
A print journal collection is available in the Law Library, although use of this print material is diminishing as the majority of journal titles are also available electronically.
All print journal titles are discoverable via Library Search and are shelved in an alphabetical sequence on rolling shelving in the Law Library. The Lasok Law Library: Guide to Printed Materials (also available in printed format throughout the Law Library for consultation) can be used to look up a journal title and identify the exact shelf number in the Law Library.
Library Search
Search across the print and online collections for books, chapters, articles, journals and lots more.
Library Search will help you discover books, journals, articles, audio visual material and more on your chosen topic. This is a good place to start when you are beginning to research a topic as you can draw on content from a variety of different sources.
For more in depth research in databases and archives, use the A-Z Databases List.