Westlaw UK features
The trusted tool for researchers in the legal industry
Learn about the content and features that have made Westlaw UK the most reliable legal research platform for generations
Advanced legal technology & tools
Stay up-to-date with global and local news plus trade and business publications
Search with ease
Find the content you need quickly. Benefit from a range of search options, including the ability to browse and search by topic area. From natural language search to suggested search terms and connectors. All results are ordered by relevance with the most relevant section highlighted.
Practical Law Integration
If your organisation subscribes to Practical Law, you will be able to access relevant cases and legislation and journals from within the Practical Law platform, creating a seamless research experience.
My Folders
My Folders is your own corner of the service where you can store and organise your legal research. Save research documents quickly or pick up where you left off at your last session as your research is never deleted. With a couple of clicks, you can add Case Reports, Analysis documents, Arrangements of Acts, pages from books, Topics’ overview articles, individual documents from search results, PDFs, and any other part of your research to My Folders. All your research ready and waiting for when you need them.
Link between relevant documents
Wherever a statutory provision is mentioned on Westlaw UK, there will be a direct link to it. If a case is referenced in a book, you can simply click on the link to be taken straight to it. If you are reading a journal article, you can jump from a reference to a book to the relevant paragraph for all books available on Westlaw UK Books, and Journals' abstracts include links to the key cases and legislation cited. Topic overview articles also provide links to statutory material, cases, journal, book, and other topic overviews.
Trail
Revisit your past research sessions. Occasionally, you may want to remind yourself of the research undertaken for a particular client. With the Trail feature, you can see all your previous research sessions from the last fourteen days and access the documents that were looked at or simply pick up where you left off.
Primary law sources
Westlaw offers the most comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date collection of legal information for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Cases
Access cases dating back to 1065. Case analysis features include a case summary, where it’s reported, the appellate history, and the status of the case. The graphical history display also means that the most complex of cases can be easily understood. Our case reporters attend court daily so you can be confident that you will have access to the latest judgments quickly.
Legislation
Our vast and ever-expanding bank of case law helps you find the information you need quickly. Access fully consolidated legislation for devolved jurisdictions updated daily. View and track bills from Westminster and Scottish Parliament and see how the law stood (or could look like) at a chosen date in time. Access regulatory and guidance materials issued by official bodies or non-governmental organisations such as HMRC Manuals, European Materials and Circulars.
Annotated Statutes
Westlaw UK’s Annotated Statutes provides invaluable expert guidance as changes in the law are proposed and implemented. New Acts are fully annotated by the team within 14 days of receiving Royal Assent. We include important information such as: What will be the impact of new legislation? How might the legislation be interpreted by the courts? How has the legislation been affected in light of subsequent legislation and case law? Annotated Statutes also includes over 360 notes on key legal concepts. The Legislation Compare tool allows users to compare the changes which have taken place between any 2 versions of legislation across EU, UK, and devolved jurisdictions.
Brexit Content
Stay abreast of Brexit-related legislation with Westlaw UK. Our in-house legislation team are always ahead of the curve, so you can advise your clients with the most up to date and accurate information. View consolidated amendments from Brexit-related draft statutory instruments, draft Sis and Bills; and content identified by our legislation team as being retained EU law.
Retained EU Legislation
The EU content provides access to primary legislation that constitutes the legal framework of the European Community, as well as secondary legislation, case law and national measures to see how they’re put into practice. You can view preparatory acts, parliamentary questions, and information and notices in the Official Journals C Series.
Secondary sources
Access to the most respected resources in the industry
Top analytical resources
To help you put the law into context, we offer a large range of market leading online books including Sweet & Maxwell publications and looseleafs. Designed with customers and built for the legal market, our revolutionary online books’ platform brings the books to life with an array of timesaving and efficiency-increasing features completely integrated with Practical Law and Westlaw UK legal content, means you get a fully rounded research experience. Learn more about Books Online key features and functionality.
Insight
Insight provides a springboard for research, particularly if you or your team are unfamiliar with a certain area of the law. Easy to navigate and searchable, Insight provides an integrated framework of 26 practice areas, each subdivided into two further levels of sub-topics. Expand your understanding of a topic both through the overview articles and by browsing across Westlaw UK’s cases, legislation, and journals which are mapped to each topic. Access over 2,000 topic overview articles, written by experts and leading practitioners and which link to leading cases, legislation, journal articles and books.
EU Materials
Access primary and secondary legislation, case law, preparatory acts, parliamentary questions, information and notices in the Official Journals C Series and national measures.
IDS Employment Law
From unfair dismissal to annual leave, IDS Employment Law enables you to conduct detailed employment law research more quickly than ever.
Journals
A host of legal journals will always reflect the key topics across the industry. As prominent issues are addressed in the media, you can bet that you will find those articles on Westlaw UK, helping you to understand the issues that matter.
Sweet & Maxwell Law Report PDFs
From within a case document, easily access the Sweet & Maxwell series of law report PDFs.
Index of Legal Terms
Index of Legal Terms offers concise expert explanations of legal concepts and terms including links to the supporting cases and legislation. As well as the option to search the dictionaries, the Index of Legal Terms identifies definitions from Westlaw UK cases, legislation and journals. The three dictionaries available are Jowitt’s Dictionary of English Law, Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary of Words and Phrases and Osborn’s Concise Law Dictionary.
Sweet & Maxwell Journal PDFs and Journal Circulation List
Easily access and download PDF versions of Sweet & Maxwell full text journals back to 2003. This also enables you to create a Journals Circulation List to deliver new issues of journals in PDF format to a recipient list.
Additional content
Stay up-to-date with global and local news plus trade and business publications
Current awareness
Our Current Awareness content, containing information on cases, legislation, and legal developments, is updated every five minutes from 8am until 5pm, Monday to Friday, ensuring you’ll get all the information you need to stay up to date and nothing more. Status icons across all cases and legislation to notify you of out-of-date law, pending amendments or appeals and alert features, you can be sure you’re always using the most authoritative, up-to-date content.
News sources
Whether you’re looking for information on industry specific matters, international developments or local news stories, our hugely expansive, independent coverage keeps you informed of the developments that matter to you.
Human expertise
Behind the technology there is human expertise providing you with time-saving guidance
Legal Editors
Our team of legal editors analyse, categorise, and summarise the law, creating editorial enhancements to help you research more efficiently – and with greater accuracy. We’re proud to employ the best legal editors in the business.
Research Support
The industry’s premier team of legal research support professionals are available 24/7 to keep your research moving forward.
What our customers are saying
Our customers trust Westlaw UK for up-to-date, authoritative and actionable content that gives them bulletproof confidence
Government
Westlaw UK provides us with up-to-date case law and legislation, which is imperative in giving accurate advice to clients. Westlaw UK is of greatest benefit to the Council’s Legal Services, particularly with the ease in which it can formulate its advice when providing a service to other Council departments. Westlaw UK will undoubtedly benefit the Council overall.
Joanne Needham
Senior Legal Officer, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council
Law Firm
Westlaw UK is a much more in depth and practical tool for the modern lawyer than any other product on the market that I have used previously.
David Lee
Law Firm Fee Earner/Anthony Collins Solicitors LLP
What’s New on Westlaw UK?
Learn about the work that we have been doing to ensure that our research solutions remain invaluable to the work that you do
Westlaw UK Enhancements
We continue to invest in our research solutions to remain invaluable to the work that you do.
Question about Westlaw UK? We’re here to support you.
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