Law Society library services
The Law Society library has one of the most comprehensive printed collections of law material in England and Wales. It provides three key services to members of the Law Society to support their legal research needs, wherever they are located, whatever organisation they work in, and irrespective of career stage. This research service is free.
The library also provides a same-day document delivery service, and access to one of the largest library collections of law material in the world.
1. Law Society library research service
The Law Society librarians deal with about 10,000 member enquiries each year, covering a wide range of legal areas from point-in-time legislation, precedents, case law, parliamentary material, locating articles, even genealogy. Enquiries come from members working in all types of legal organisations – from sole practitioners to Top 100, in-house, and government. Also, from many different locations across England and Wales and beyond.
The majority of enquiries received are either by email or telephone so it does not matter where you are based you can use the service. For the vast majority of research carried out by the Law Society library there is no charge.
Charges only apply if research takes longer than 30 minutes and you will be notified well in advance if that is likely to happen. So, if you need some research help please contact the library service on 020 7320 5946 or library@lawsociety.org.uk Telephone and emails enquiry lines are open 09.00am – 17.00pm, Monday to Friday.
2. Collection service
The printed collection comprises of 55,000 titles. It is a reference only collection made up of:
• Precedents – including EF&P, Atkins and textbooks i.e. Tristram and Coote
• Law Reports – a range of law reports for England and Wales, collections covering other British jurisdictions and a small collection of Commonwealth law reports
• Legislation – public general acts, local and private acts, plus access to both original and amended legislation
• Journals – a large collection of journal indexes and legal journals
• Parliamentary – House of Commons papers from 1801 and Hansard debates from 1804
• Commentary – an extensive collection of up-to-date practitioner textbooks and looseleafs to find commentary relevant to your query The library also has 11 public access pc’s with access to Lexis, Westlaw, PSL and Justis.
3. Lawdocs service
Lawdocs is the library’s heavily used document delivery service, dealing with around 100 requests for copies of legal information each month. Documents can be scanned and emailed straight to your inbox. Alternatively, they can be posted, sent by DX delivery, faxed or collected.
The service is often used when documents are required for current judicial proceedings. Delivery time is normally within 3 hours but can be carried out in 45 minutes if the request is urgent.
Email contact details are: lawdocs@lawsociety.org.uk and the service is open 9.00am – 5.00pm, Monday-Friday.
As the library is fully compliant with the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) agreement requirements there is a copyright fee for using the service which is passed on to the CLA.