There are two main source types.
Primary sources are the law itself. There are two main types:
This page looks at finding primary sources.
You can find case law on legal databases. You will need some details of the case in order to find it.
You have access to three main databases for case law:
Case law is published in law reports.
There are different series of law reports - some are general, for example Session Cases; others cover a narrow area of law, for example Building Law Reports. Important cases are written up in more than one law report series.
It's important that you read the case report specified by your lecturer because different law reports will present the case differently.
You can find the correct case report by searching using the full citation.
A case citation directs you to a specific case report in a law report series. The format is :
Defender v Pursuer Year of publication Law report series Starting page number of report
Here's an example:
Glenlion Construction Ltd v. The Guiness Trust 1988 BLR 89
So this means the case was Glenlion Constuction Ltd against the Guiness Trust, it was published in 1988 in the Building Law Reports series and starts on page 89.
Law report series are often abbreviated. For example Session Cases is shortened to SC.
You can find UK legislation on the government website Legislation.gov and also on legal databases Westlaw and Lexis+.
Westlaw and Lexis+ are updated more frequently than Legislation.Gov and make it easy to find related case law and analysis. This means you can easily see how the legislation is being interpreted by the courts.
Search using the title of the Act. For example:
Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 c.53
The year is the year the Act became law ('date of commencement' or 'date of Royal Assent'). C.53 is the chapter number. The chapter number is a running number which starts at 1 at the beginning of every year. So this is the 53rd Act to be given Royal Assent in the year 1996.
Acts of the Scottish Parliament look similar, but use asp (Act of the Scottish Parliament) rather than c. For example:
Building (Scotland) Act 2003 asp 8
Often the Act title is used without the chapter or asp number. You only need the title and year to find the legislation.
There are two ways to access the JCT SBC/Q contract - it is available from both the Construction Infomation Service and Lexis+ UK. Use one of the links below. Search for "JCT standard building contract with quantities". Make sure to select the 2016 edition.
GCU students can access NEC4 contracts, short contracts and subcontracts, as well as associated documentation through GCULearn.