Lecture to City University's MSc Information Science students (March 2013). Covering the legal information profession, role of law librarians and intro to legal information.

1. Legal Information:
an introduction
Emily Allbon (March 2013)

2. What’s covered today?
 Legal librarianship
 Lawbore
 Westlaw
 Q&A

3. What makes law special and unique?
 Academic libraries produce special subject guides for law
 Law has its own thesauri/classification systems (see
Moys)
 Legal information users are regarded as a specific
grouping
 English Law has a long history, giving rise to its own
literature, as does law librarianship
 Primary legal documents take very specific forms (e.g.
legislation)
 It has its own specialist language
 Indexing legal documents is a specialist area and legal
information retrieval is also very specialised skill (e.g.
doctrine of precedent)
*Special thanks to Hilary Vieitez for this – ideas from her
2010 dissertation on domain analysis and law.

4. Classifications
 General classification schemes incorporate law but Moys (1968) is law-
specific.
 LC didn‟t allow levels of complexity required – Moys splits into primary,
secondary, law reference and law journals.
 Moys still used in many corporate, government and academic settings – now
on 5th edition (2012) in UK, Canada, Australia and NZ
 Law usually approached in terms of jurisdiction
MOYS PRIMARY LAW CLASSIFICATIONS
 KF - Great Britain
KF 20-34 English Legislation
KF 51-54 English reports of cases before 1865
KF 55 English Authorised law reports after 1865
KF 60 English General law reports
KF 65 English specialised law reports
KF 101-160 Scottish legislation and law reports
KF 201-260 Irish legislation and law reports
KG - North America
KG 1-280 Canada - legislation and law reports
 KG 301-377 United States - legislation and law reports

5. Law librarians
 Work in range of places
 Law firms
 Academic institutions
 Professional orgs
 Industry & commerce
 Government
 Freelance
 International network
 Professional organisations
 Variety

6. Director of Information & Research in Law
Firm ~ remit
Library, legal information & Records & archive
research
Data protection Environmental Group Chair
Know how Intranet & web 2.0
functionality
Budgets Liaison with Professional
Support Lawyers
Vendor negotiations and Strategic advice to Chicago
development HQ on information retrieval
and access

7. What do the team do?
Library admin (jnl circulation, Research – business/financial
cataloguing, invoices etc) & legal
Current awareness – Training – including research
monitoring & alerts, filtering, skills to lawyers (CPD
compiling, distribution accredited)
Intranet content control & Know how database
development
Pro bono administration CPD records
Copyright permissions & advice Vendor meetings/Practice
group meetings
Demos & webinars with other Competitive
offices intelligence/practice
development/client pitches

8. Challenges for our sector
 Doing more with less – squeezed budgets arising
between fierce competition between law firms mean
being more inventive in supplying services and
resources
 More pressure on fee earner time so easier the
better for them – looking at federated searching
 Squeeze on space – Reed Smith moving again and
losing 40% of space
 Industry, geographic and and international company
info most in demand
 Outsourcing
 Legal information literacy – improving standards of
legal research to offset google effect

9. What is my role?
 Background
 Why law?
 Who are my users?
 Responsibilities:
 Collection
 Teaching & assessment
 Managing the space
 Supporting the CLS –
active liaison with
academics, students, law
careers, volunteering.
 Mooting
 Lawbore
 Current projects

10. New library

11. What are people’s perceptions of legal
info?
 Scary
 Too important to get wrong
 Either know it or you don‟t
 All over the place
 Expensive

12. Realities
 Very specialised
 Many pitfalls
 Essentially getting your help wrong could mean
someone failing an essay or losing a case
 Mix of sources, electronic and hard copy
 Legal publishers rule

13. Lawbore
 Student guide to web  Unique
 Created 2002  International interest

14. More Lawbore
 Topic guides: links to web resources via subject
studied
 City Hub: community site for students: E-Library,
News, Twitter, Database access
 Learnmore: how-to wiki, learning legal skills
 Future Lawyer: careers blog – participation from
current students AND alumni

15. Sources of the law of England & Wales
PRIMARY SECONDARY
CASE JOURNALS TEXT REFERENCE
LEGISLATION LEGAL
LAW ENCYCLOPEDIA BOOKS WORKS
PRIMARY SECONDARY
ACTS
BYELAWS STATUTORY CODES
STATUTORY OF PRACTICE
INSTRUMENTS
LOCAL &
PUBLIC GENERAL PERSONAL ACTS
ACTS From Clinch, P. Using a Law Library,
2nd ed, 2001, Blackstone

16. Sources of Primary UK law
Case law Legislation
 „Made‟ by the courts  „Made‟ by Parliament
 Interpret what is in the  Split into primary and
act in relation to the secondary.
very particular situation  Act = primary: general
laid out in front of them principles
 Some areas do not  SI/Byelaws/Codes of
have much legislation – Practice = the detail
courts have to lead the  Progress of an act is
way very lengthy

17. Sources of Secondary UK law
 Journals
 Legal encyclopedias
 Textbooks
 Reference works e.g.
dictionaries

18. What about sources of EU law?
PRIMARY SECONDAR
Y
PRIMARY SECONDARY
LEGISLATION LEGISLATION CASE LAW
JOURNALS
TEXTBOOKS &
ENCYCLOPEDIAS
TREATIES REGULATIONS DIRECTIVES DECISIONS RECOMMMEN OPINIONS
-DATIONS

19. The rest of the world?

20. What types of UK legal information are
there?
 Case law (law reports)
 Legislation (statutes, SI‟s, bills…)
 Parliamentary material (Hansard,
command papers, House papers)
Commentary (journal articles,
practitioner texts)
 Reports (e.g. Law Commission,
government departments)

21. Free stuff
 More of a reality, but…
 Legal publishing
aggressive
 LexisNexis/Thomson
dominate
 Specialist areas tied up
by international
publishers like Kluwer,
Informa
 Legislation complex
 BAILII is the king of the
free legal web
 Legal Information
Institute movement

22. Legal Databases – the two giants
LexisLibrary Westlaw
 Cases, Legislation,  Cases, Legislation,
Journals, Books Journals, Books
 Covers UK, EU, US and
other common law  Covers UK, EU, US and
jurisdictions other common law
 Not easy to use jurisdictions
 Holds a wider range of  Popular for its
law reports navigation
 Respected for its  Brilliant for value-added
legislation and
encyclopedia facility info (Case Analysis esp)
(Halsbury‟s Laws)  Excellent journals

23. How to access?

24. Your profile

25. Westlaw

26. What is Westlaw?
 Online searchable database
 1000‟s of sources of legal information
 Legislation, law reports
 Books &…
 Brilliant for journals

27. CASES

28. Phrase searching

29. Looking for cases…
Look for
Pepper v
Hart [1993]
AC 593

30. Cases tab

31. No need for
the „v‟
Find cases where a
word has been defined
(e.g. guardian)

32. Case analysis

33. Journals from case analysis

34. „Traffic light‟ coding system:
• Red no entry = negative judicial treatment
•Yellow exclamation mark = mixed or mildly negative judicial treatment
•Green C = Positive or neutral judicial treatment received

35. Additional views within case analysis

36. These can sometimes look complicated!

37. LEGISLATION

38. Looking for acts…
 Look for Welfare Reform Act 2007

39. Finds statutes & SI’s

40. Sections of the Act
It‟s those traffic lights
again!
• Tick = In force
• N = Not yet in force
• P = Partially in force
• R = Repealed
• ! = Amendment
pending

41. Amendments pending?
Use the
version
button to see
how it WILL
look…

42. JOURNAL ARTICLES

43. Journal searching
LEGAL JOURNALS FULL TEXT
INDEX  Full text articles from
 Summaries of articles 111 legal journals.
from 400 legal journals.
 Gets straight to the
 Comprehensive search.
article.
 Articles not on Westlaw
 Not comprehensive –
could be in library or on
coverage never goes
Lexis or HeinOnline.
back further than
 Frustrating if no access
1986.
to full text.

44. Journal searching – browse or search

45. Look for…
Self-standing actions for judicial review and the
Swedish Factortame by Xavier Groussot

46. Full text available

47. Looking for journals
 Email it to yourself!

48. Email options

49. Commentary
 Several key practitioner texts including Archbold (for
Crime)
 Be aware that we only have the basic subscription
for books…We don‟t have access to Chitty
(Contracts) or Clerk & Lindsell (Tort) amongst others.

50. More detailed searching

51. Improving your search
 OR
 Phrases
 Wildcards
 Truncation
 And
 Proximity
*Use the Terms in Context
to help you filter*

52. Combining words – and
e.g. defamation and internet

53. Using OR
Think like a
thesaurus!

54. OR searching
medical negligence baby
infant
and or

55. Connectors
and or
 NARROWS SEARCH  BROADENS SEARCH
• Use when both words • Use for synonyms
HAVE to appear • Use for abbreviations
• Use when both words • Use when you don‟t mind
have to appear but not which word appears so
next to each other long as one of them does

56. Truncation
startoftheword!
Will find all endings of the
word

57. Truncation continued…
borrow! tax!
 borrower  taxation
 borrowing  taxes
 borrowed  taxed
But also…
 taxi
 taxidermist
Search example: Unfair dismissal and pregnan!

58. Queen Victoria Seaman’s Rest Ltd v Ward
(2009)
 What issues
did the
claimant
have with her
workspace?
 What was
the result of
the appeal?

59. Phrase searching
 In Westlaw:
drink driving = drink AND driving (not necessarily
together)
 If searching for a phrase:
“drink driving”

60. Wildcards ******
Search example:
g*psy and caravan

61. When did the claimant in
Doherty and Others v
Birmingham City Council
[2008] UKHL 57 obtain a
licence to station a
caravan on plot 12?

62. Your turn…
 Search for a judgment by
Lord Denning that talks
about a red hand.

63. Advanced searching
keyword
s
Name
of
judge

64. A better hit list!

65. More advanced…
Search for cases that
discuss the:
Criminal Justice Act 1991
s.28

66. Search for cases on:
Truncation
hijack! and aeroplane or plane
How many cases do you find?

67. Proximity searching = the best one of all!
Westlaw
 /p
 /s
 /3

68. Your turn…
 Search for cases of negligence in swimming pools…

70. Cut a
big list
down
with
proximit
y
search!

71. Try /s or /5 to get the list down further…

72. Remember – how to cut down
results…
• Use more keywords
• Use more specific keywords
• Restrict by date
• Restrict by publication
• Use proximity connectors rather than AND
• Look at your results and adjust your
search
• Maximum results for browsing probably 25

73. Other jurisdictions?
Patchy and well
hidden
 UK & EU as standard
 US, Australia, Canada
more limited
 International materials
available

74. A silly one to finish…
 Find a case about
dodgy cabbage seeds
where Lord Denning
quotes the walrus
from Lewis Carroll‟s
Through the Looking
Glass…

75. …and another
Find a case involving
midgets, who were on
exhibition at a circus
when an elephant
knocked them down.

76. Some insults…
 Can you find the name
of the case where the
defendant called
someone a „monkey-
faced tart‟?

77.  In which case did a well-known actor, director
and writer bring an action against a journalist
for writing statements which purported him to
be „hideously ugly‟?

78. Saving your research
• New feature allows you to save your
research in Westlaw.
• My folders

79. Further reading
 Introductions to using a law library:
 Clinch – Using a Law Library (2001) Blackstone also Legal
Research: a practititoners handbook (2010) Wildy
 Holborn – Butterworths Legal Research Guide (2001)
Butterworths
 Journal: Legal Information Management (CUP) via
Westlaw
 Online stuff:
 Talking slideshow (via Learnmore)
 BIALL website http://www.biall.org.uk/ and blog
http://biall.blogspot.com/
 Mailing lists – lis-law and BIALL list
 Keep an eye out for BIALL events – especially bursaries
for conference.

80. Any questions?
 e.allbon@city.ac.uk
 @lawbore

81. Image credits
 Slide 1 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/sp3ccylad/497684709/
 Slide 11 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/stumayhew/3747070194/
 Slide 19 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ironrodart/4132833849/
 Slide 29 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/alancleaver/2380333595/
 Slide 45 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/rammorrison/4704353204/
 Slide 49 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/lazurite/3486691753/
 Slide 51 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/minifig/3174009125/sizes/m/in/photostream/
 Slide 52 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeleeorg/1474215318/
 Slide 53 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewoodenshoes/3060319548/
 Slide 61 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/42523645@N00/351556192/
 Slide 62 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/artisandhu/2394701546/
 Slide 66 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/vox_efx/3578322709/
 Slide 67 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/oliverquinlan/7043039925/
 Slide 68 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaypeg/177544398/
 Slide 73 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/fsse-info/2792355658/
 Slide 74 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachelandrew/277682764/
 Slide 75 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/melagranametropolitana/5179700645/
 Slide 76 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/laertes_za/3055795154/
 Slide 77 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/benaston/2371926719/