Research Guides: Guide to Research and Citation for CLELJ Editors: Key Databases

Key Legal Databases

Westlaw
Access to case law, statutes, and many secondary sources.
LabourSource (on Westlaw)
Sign in and then go to "My Subscriptions" > "Labour Source" (in the top tab above the search bar)
Full text of Brown & Beatty (Canadian Labour Arbitration); full text of cases from Labour Arbitration Cases (1st series to current).
Lexis
Access to case law, statutes, and many secondary sources.

CanLII
CanLII provides access to court judgments, tribunal decisions, statutes and regulations from all Canadian jurisdictions.
Date coverage: Early 2000s - present

Legal Article Databases and Indexes

Full-text databases are wonderful for providing direct access to the articles themselves, but don't forget about indexes. Some indexes contain full-text articles (as noted below), but they are invaluable for tracking down the existence of an article when the citation to verify is missing elements or has incorrect information.

Index to Legal Periodicals Full Text
Index to more than 1,025 legal journals, law reviews, yearbooks, institutes, statutes, bar association publications, university publications, and government publications from the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition, approximately 1,400 books are indexed each year since 1993. More information.
Date Coverage: Journal articles: 1981 - present ; Books: 1993 - present.
LegalTrac
Comprehensive index to law and law-related journals and newspapers.
LegalTrac indexes approximately 1,400 titles including major law reviews, legal newspapers, bar association journals and international legal journals. Each publication indexed is selected on the basis of criteria provided by a special advisory committee of the American Association of Law Libraries.

The database also contains law-related articles from over 1,000 additional business and general interest journals and periodicals.

1980 - present
Index to Canadian Legal Literature
Index to Canadian Legal Literature (ICLL) is a bibliographic database providing thorough coverage of Canadian law journal literature. ICLL indexes journals, law reports, books, book reviews, theses, essay collections and Canadiana Forthcoming Books. ICLL records relate to articles, monographs, case comments, annotations, seminar proceedings, etc., as selected by ICLL's legal editors.
Date Coverage: 1985 - present
HeinOnline
Access to full-text of legal journals, books, US federal statutes and regulations, and more.
Full-text access to legal research collections, including: Law Journal Library, Legal Classics Library, US Statutes at Large and Code of Federal Regulations (and other congressional documents), Treaties and Agreements Library, U.S. Supreme Court Library, English Reports (Full Reprint Edition) and more. All collections provide comprehensive coverage of each publication, with the a facsimile version of the full-text displayed in image-based format.