Online Legal Databases

• Lexis/Nexis and Quicklaw
• WestlaweCarswell

Major compilations of common law case law freely available on the web.

• World Legal Information Institute
• Australasian Legal Information Institute
• British and Irish Legal Information Institute
• Canadian Legal Information Institute
• Hong Kong Legal Information Institute
• Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute
• (United States) Legal Information Institute

How to Locate Case Law

There are a number of ways to find case law:

• Legal textbooks can provide access to case law since authors generally refer in the footnotes to important cases that illustrate the points of law they are discussing.

• Law journals can also provide access to case law since, like books, authors of articles often refer in the footnotes to important cases that illustrate the points of law they are discussing.

• Legal encyclopedias, which are organized by topic, are comprised of articles or paragraphs that synthesize and comment on specific points of law. Entries are accompanied by citations to cases that support the principles discussed. Each of the three major common law jurisdictions has an encyclopedia that is considered pre-eminent within that jurisdiction:

Canada : Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (C.E.D.)
United Kingdom : Halsbury's Laws of England
United States : Corpus Juris Secundum

• Legal digests, which are also arranged by topic, provide summaries of important cases. They also provide citations to full-text reports of these cases.

Canada : Canadian Abridgment
United Kingdom : The Digest
United States : West's Digest System

There are also law-related case law digests for other jurisdictions.

• Topical case reporters contain indices that provide access to the reporters by subject and case name. To find cases dealing with insurance law, for example, one could search the indices to the Canadian Cases on the Law of Insurance (C.C.L.I.), which would provide access to a select number of cases on the topic of insurance.

• Online legal databases such as Quicklaw, WestlaweCarswell and Lexis have full-text databases of court decisions that allow you to search by keyword by subject or case name.

Comprehensive instructions on locating case law can be found on the library's Guide to Legal Research

Page written by Ted Tjaden, LL.B., M.I.St., Information Services Coordinator. Designed, updated and maintained by Susan Barker, Electronic Information Coordinator.

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All contents copyright Bora Laskin Law Library, 2004