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How to Locate Journals and Journal Articles

Law journals are an excellent legal research resource. Articles are generally written by experts in their field, they often refer to relevant case law or legislation, and they generally provide good overviews or explanations of the law. This page sets outs steps on locating law journals. At the bottom of this page is special information on locating journals from other disciplines.

Step 1: Use journal indexes to find articles by keyword, title, author or case name

Journal indexes provide access to journal articles by keyword, author or title. To find law-related articles from the mid 1980's to current, use one of the several online law journal indexes available at the University of Toronto:

To find older articles, you must use print journal indexes. The print version of the Index to Canadian Legal Literature at the Bora Laskin Law Library is available at the Reference Desk (main floor). The print versions of other legal journal indexes can be found at Row 54 on the third (top) floor of the library.

If you already have a citation to a journal article, proceed directly to step 2.

Step 2: Locate the law journal

Using the information found in the journal indexes from Step 1, make note of the journal in which the article is found. Then check UTCat to see if the journal is held by the University of Toronto , or Bora Laskin Law Library Journals Database to see if the journal is held here in the library, Journals are available on our third (top) floor.

If the journal is not held by the University of Toronto, or if the required journal volume is missing from the shelf, or if you prefer to obtain an electronic version of the journal article, move to step 3.

Step 3: Check to see if the journal is online

Law journals are increasingly being published online, either on the Internet, or through a University of Toronto e-journal subscription or through commercial legal databases like Westlaw, Lexis and Quicklaw. Check the Bora Laskin Law Library Journals Database to see if the journal is available online. Note: Access to online journals is restricted to the following categories of patrons. The Bora Laskin Law Library is not able to provide access to or download articles for unauthorized persons.

Database

Authorized Users at the U of T

WestlaweCarswell

Law students and Law Faculty
Lawyers or other information professionals with their own passwords
Quicklaw/LexisNexis

Law students and Law Faculty
Faculty of Information Studies students
Lawyers or other information professionals with their own passwords

* Registered U of T students can be logged into Quicklaw by library staff on a designated computer at the Bora Laskin Law Library for academic research only (identification is required).

U of T e-journals

U of T students and patrons on campus

Step 4: See if the journal is available at other libraries

If the journal is not available at the University of Toronto or online, check the York University catalogue or the Great Library catalogue to see if either of these libraries carry the journal. If so, you can consider going to York University's law library (4700 Keele Street) or the Great Library (130 Queens Street West, Osgoode Subway station) to obtain the article in question. Alternatively, if you are a U of T law student or faculty member, you can ask us to place a document delivery request to see if we can find the article for you (e-mail law.ill@utoronto.ca with the details of your request).

If you want to find journal articles outside of the legal field, consider following the steps above by first starting your searches using the online journal indexes available at U of T's e-indexes website.

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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