Legal citations and abbreviations
Law reports are referred to using standardised citations (such as: Pepper v Hart [1993] A.C. 593) which provide the party names, Pepper and Hart; the year in which the report was published, 1993; the law report series abbreviation, AC and page number, 593.
To locate where a specific case has been 'reported', identify the abbreviation via the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations.
Law Reports
In English law (England and Wales), there has been one official series of law reports since 1865, known as The Law Reports. This series comprises separate sequences for each court division - Appeal Cases (AC), Chancery (Ch.), King's Bench (KB) and Family (Fam.). Other report series include the All England Law Reports, and specialist series such as the Criminal Appeal Reports.
To find UK case law:
- Use Westlaw UK or Lexis + UK
.
- Find printed versions at KD275 - KD279 Main Collection, 1st floor.
- vLex Justis - use as a starting point to search case law and legal citations with judicial histories and precedent maps. Each citation provides a drop-down list of where to locate the full text.
- British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) - publishes full text of judgments (the official transcript) from the High Courts of the UK from 1997 onwards.
- Find case law - launched by The National Archives in spring 2022, this site contains decisions from the UK Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court, and Upper Tribunals.
- Croner i-Tax and Accounting - UK Tax Cases.
Pre-1865 law reports
Prior to 1865, cases were reported by individuals and these became known as the Nominate Reports.
English Reports, 1235 -1865 (ER), KD270 E51, first floor is a reprint of the Nominate Reports. They are not usually cited as 'English Reports' but by their original citation e.g. (1675) 1 Rolle 360.
All England Law Reports Reprint 1558-1936, KD288.A6 A42 includes important older cases.
HeinOnline World Trials Library contains a selection of English trials relating to offences against the State. A wide variety of cases is covered, predominantly high treason but also bigamy, sedition, murder, riot, piracy, witchcraft and corruption.
Proceedings of the Old Bailey 1674 - 1913 is a fully searchable service containing over 190,000 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.