Researching Case Law

Westlaw UK

Westlaw UK provides access to databases of case law, legislation, news, journals, commentary, current awareness alerts and EU legal materials.

Westlaw UK does not have the official series of The Law Reports for the Superior and Appellate Courts of England and Wales - for these you will need to use ICLR Online. Westlaw UK does include subject specific law reports of the UK & EU, Criminal Appeal Reports, English Reports, European Human Rights Reports, and European Patent Office Reports.

Case Example:

R. v Williams (Winston Anthony) (1994) 99 Cr App R 163

In this example the name of the case is R. v Williams (Winston Anthony). The law report citation for this case is (1994) 99 Cr App R 163.

Searching Westlaw UK

1. Go to Westlaw UK database homepage via the Library A-Z databases.
2. On the Westlaw UK homepage under the Cases link select Cases Search.

3. Select Show Terms and Connectors to see the specific search techniques this database needs.

4. You can enter the case name, citation or subject matter to search.

Searching Westlaw UK by citation

The quickest way to find a full text of a case on Westlaw UK is to search for it by citation.

1. Start typing the case citation 1994 99 cr app r 163 in the Citation field. Westlaw UK will recognise the text and match it to the nearest citation.

2. Click on the link to the relevant highlighted citation, then click Search.

Searching Westlaw UK by case name

If you only know the case name to a case, you can still find it without knowing the citation.  

1. Enter part or all of one or both party names in the Parties field.

2. Click on the link to the relevant highlighted citation, then click Search.

Downloading a Westlaw UK case

1. In the results screen, click on the abbreviation to the relevant law report citation.

2. From the full text of the case, you can access a pdf version - this is as it appears in the print law reports, and is 'court ready'

3. There are additional options on the right to email, print and download.

Note

When you click on the PDF icon to download the full text of a case from a law report, you may receive the following error message.

This just indicates that the law report is not available via WestlawUK.  

To obtain the full text PDF of the case go direct to ICLR Online via the Library A-Z Databases. Instructions on how to search in ICLR are in the Authorised cases via ICLR Online page.

Viewing Case Analysis information about a case

Once you have found a useful case it will be important to research for other cases that have judicially considered that case. It is also useful to research what cases or legislation that case has considered.

1. From the results screen, click on Case Analysis

2.     Click on Primary References to view Cases Cited information on

• All Cases Cited includes all cases that this case considered

• Key Cases Citing lists key subsequent cases that have considered this case

• All Cases Citing lists all subsequent cases that have considered this case

• Legislation Cited lists legislation which this case has considered

3. Click on Commentary References to view any secondary sources such as books or journal articles, which have discussed this case.

Finding UK legislation judicially considered

Westlaw UK is a good database to search for UK cases that have judicially interpreted a provision of legislation.

This example will search for cases which have considered the Justice and Security Act 2013 (UK).

1. To find cases which have considered a provision of a UK Act, type the name (in double quotation marks) in the Free Text box on the Cases Search screen and select Search.

2. You can narrow your results by clicking on the filters on the left of the screen which allow you to narrow the results by topic, court, status, authority and date.