LAW Finding Law Journal Articles
Legal Journals
This guide is intended to help students and researchers in law by leading to information sources that will assist researchers in finding articles. The tabs will open pages with links to some sources. Legal databases may be restricted to University of Calgary users or to Faculty of Law users.
The articles found in legal journals (print or electronic) may be more current than texts or books. They will likely be more specific and help identify issues and keywords/search terms. Law journal articles provide in-depth information on specialized, narrow legal topics and, often, more current information than books. Law journals are a rich source of scholarly writing. Although some are published commercially, more emanate from law schools, and include articles on a broad range of subjects. The law library has a very strong journal collection - from Canada and the United States, as well as other countries. Our bound journals are arranged mostly alphabetically in the stacks on the first floor. Legal databases (for example, WestlawNext Canada, Lexis Advance Quicklaw, HeinOnline and LegalTrac) contain the full text of thousands of articles. Electronic indexes are available for legal periodicals that provide citation information to locate the articles in a journal. They may not contain the full text. The Index to Canadian Legal Literature is located in print form in the law library reference secition (K1 .A11372) on WestlawNext Canada and Lexis Advance Quicklaw.
There are also general full text sources (e.g., library search box, Google Scholar) that may provide legal articles.
General search options
Hundreds of legal journals are linked directly from the library search box (Print and electronic). Start your search broadly and note the call number and location (e.g., Law-1st Floor). You should use journal indexes and legal databases to locate articles because your search will be more complete in finding articles.
- Library Search BoxSearch many of our databases and collections as well as from traditional bibliographic sources (journal articles, dissertations, newspapers, etc.) It does not search all legal databases.The discovery tool called Primo will help determine the correct interdisciplinary database to conduct your research for articles.
You can search the library's collections for journal titles by using the journals search.
- Journal SearchEnter the title or ISSN for the journal to search the library's collection of print, electronic, and microformat serial titles.
Main legal article databases
Some of the best sources for full-text include:
- WestlawNext Canada(U of C access only) Includes Canadian and foreign full-text law journals. Westlaw includes nearly 15,000 databases and over 700 full text law reviews.
- WestlawNext Canada (UofC Law School only)WestlawNext includes nearly 15,000 databases and over 700 full text law reviews.
- HeinOnline(U of C access only) Provides full text access to legal journals, from volume one for most titles; available in PDF.The library catalogue will also link to HeinOnline sources.
- Lexis Advance Quicklaw(UofC Law School only.)
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowTo set up Google Scholar to detect UofC subscribed resources, refer to Google Scholar setup (in the Natural Sciences Programme LibGuide)A subset of Google that only indexes academic journals. Pros: searching is very easy - just like for regular Google. Covers journals in many disciplines. Cons: Limited functionality for filtering results. May include some journals of dubious quality.
- Last Updated: Sep 21, 2023 8:29 AM
- URL: https://libguides.ucalgary.ca/guides/legaljournals
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