The Library's team of experienced law librarians can answer questions on points of law by finding commentary and cases, source precedents, update legislation and much more. The one thing which we cannot do is to provide legal advice. Please note that, from 1 January 2013, the library will be introducing charges for enquiries requiring more than 10 minutes of research.
As well as searching our extensive collection of over 55,000 volumes for you, we can search the online databases such as Justis, Justcite, Lexis Library and Westlaw, on your behalf.
We can research questions on most legal topics covering British jurisdictions and the EU.
Information services
Precedents - The library's collection includes a wide range of textbooks which include precedents and we can search these resources to find a precedent that matches your needs. We can find forms for court, lease agreements, employment contracts and much more.
Cases - We hold a wide range of law reports for England and Wales and a smaller collection covering other British jurisdictions and a small collection of commonwealth law reports. We can find cases on a topic, check for any subsequent cases and much more. Our English Cases Index provides references to cases that have been published in the English national newspapers and selected law reports from the early 1990s. This index is available on Library Online to registered users.
Articles - We have access to various journal indexes and a large collection of legal journals which we can use to find articles for you. So whether you are trying to find a specific article or want to know what has been written about a topic we can help. Why not register for Library Online to gain free access to LexisNexis journal index enabling you to search for journal articles from your office.
Commentary - In addition to commentary contained in articles we can also check our extensive collection of practitioner textbooks to find commentary relevant to your query.
Legislation - We can find public general, local and private acts and have access to both amended and original legislation. We can also update acts to a particular point in time.
Parliamentary - The library holds House of Commons papers from 1801 and Hansard debates from 1804 so if you are looking for a command paper, bill, government report or other parliamentary material get in touch with us and we will see if we can source it for you.
Anything we find can be copied via our document delivery service, Lawdocs for a fee.
Historical enquiries
As well as answering queries about the current legal situation we can help with historical enquires. In addition to the current textbooks we keep superseded editions and original legislation so, if for example, you need to know what a section of an act looked like on a certain date or what the 14th edition of Chitty on Contracts said on a specific subject we can trace this for you.
European Union enquiries
Our specialist EU librarian is an expert at finding EU material and answering enquiries on EU law and institutions. We also monitor current EU legal developments and produce the EU developments database which is free to registered users of Library Online.
Corporate archive enquiries
The Law Society believes in being open about what we do and we make a lot of information available via our website. We can search the Society's Council, Board and Committee documentation to find information about policy decisions or responses by the Society. Requests for information that may be found within the Society's Corporate Archive should be emailed to the library and are dealt with under the Society's Freedom of Information Code of Practice.
Research service charges
| Research up to 20 mins | £20 plus VAT |
| 21 to 40 mins | £40 plus VAT |
| 41 to 60 mins | £60 plus VAT |
You may also purchase a prepaid bundle of research hours at a discount, five hours research time for the price of four: £240
Research will normally be completed within 48 hours.
If you need an answer quickly, we will also offer a Premium research service. Research enquiries received before 14:00 will be completed on the same day.
Premium service charges:
| 0 to 20 minutes | £42 plus VAT |
| 21 to 40 minutes | £62 plus VAT |
| 41 to 60 minutes | £82 plus VAT |
Terms and conditions
Read our terms and conditions (PDF 60kb)