Undergraduate Laws

Online Legal Research Exercises

Please note that all students studying Common Law Reasoning and Institutions are required to complete the online legal research exercises.

As a graduate of the 21st century, you will be expected to be familiar with a range of search engines and databases and have gained some expertise in using these tools for your research - from looking up a law report or journal article you need to read as part of your course to finding particular information to help you with a specific research project. You will also need to be able to evaluate and assess the quality of any web-based information you download.

The University's online library provides a number of excellent password protected databases for students such as Westlaw, LexisNexis Professional, Justis and Jstor. There are also many other useful databases and search engines, such as the House of Lords and the Department for Constitutional Affairs - on which you will find the Court Service - which you can download through the online library or simply through the Web without the need for a password.

We have provided a number of exercises for you many of which are centred around the password protected databases provided through the University’s online library. Although the materials you will retrieve as you do the exercises currently available are relevant to the Intermediate subjects, if you are not familiar with the databases in the online library you should still do them as, having done so, you will be in a better position to successfully retrieve materials relevant to the subject(s) you are studying.

All the Online Legal Research Exercises can be accessed through the Laws VLE.