1. Case Law
Using Lexis Library
Catherine Funnell
Middlesex University

2. Databases-Quick Facts
Heinonline
• English Reports(pre 1865 cases) only
• Available on the Internet
Westlaw and Lexis Library
• Access to legislation case law, journal articles
• Also current awareness(status updates legislation
and cases)
• EU legislation,cases,journal articles

3. Lexis Library
• UK cases from 1865, including All England Law
Reports
• Cases of the Irish, Northern Ireland and Scottish
courts from 1945
• European Union cases from 1954
• Commonwealth cases, especially Australia, Canada,
and South Africa
• US Federal and State case law from all 50 states
• Halsbury’s Laws-latest edition

4. Accessing Lexis Library
• Log in to My UniHub
• Select the My study tab
• Scroll down the page to find My Library
• Click on Library Subject Guides
• Select the Law and Legal Research Guide
• Select the Resources tab
• Scroll down to the Gateways to Legal Resources sub tab
• Select Lexis library
You can search for Case Law by
Citation
Party Names
Subject
Go to the next slide to find a case By Citation

5. Reading a Legal Citation
[1993] 1 ALL ER 42
Date-Year case was reported
Law Report Series where it was reported
Volume of Law Report Series
Page in Law Report Volume
This is a legal citation for a
case
You need to know what
each part of the citation
represents
Go to the next slide to find the case on Lexis

6. Finding the Case
Citation
Pepper v Hart is the
Case
Let’s take a Closer
Look at this page

7. Understanding the Detail
Signal Help
Court where case was
heard
Judgement Date
Source-Where case was
reported
Click on the 1st result on this list

8. Case Detail
All ER(The All England
Reports) gives you the
detail you require
Useful information
Commentary on the case .
The source is Halsbury’s Laws
of England

9. Case Detail(cont’d)
Click on Citator
Document to find
more useful
information
PDF(can SAVE
or View the
Document)
Print, save , email ,export
to bibliographic software

10. Signal Help(Case Status)
The top area is useful as
it gives you the Signal
Help (Status) and the
Case History for this
case.
Click on the Green
(positive) status to see a
drop down list of related
cases where Pepper v
Hart has been applied or
considered
For more information on Status Icons go to the next
slide

11. Signal Help(Status Icons cont’d)
Status icons are important as you
need to be aware of the status of a
case . Is it ‘Good law’?Has it
received a positive judicial
treatment .Click on Read More
Click on Signal
Help
Go to the next slide to see Signal Help

12. Signal Help(Status Icons)
Lexis refers to these
symbols as ‘signal
help’ whilst Westlaw
calls them ‘status
icons ‘
They indicate what
kind of treatment a
case has received

13. Party Names
It’s easy to find a
case by Party
Names
Just type the
names in the party
names Box!
Go to the next slide to see the results

14. Preview of Case
You can click on
Preview and/or go to
the Full Document

15. Full Text of Case
Go to the next slide to search by Subject

16. Subject Searching
Type the phrase enclosed in
“speech marks”
To get fewer results use
the Sidebar and Filter
Go to the next slide to see the results after editing the
search

17. Filtered Results
By editing(adding
another search phrase)
we have significantly
narrowed the results
and found cases closer
to what we really need!
“unfair
dismissal” and
“trade union”

18. Full Text
From the Full Text of this
result you can see where
the subject keyword
phrases are highlighted
in the text of the case