Law

This is a general guide for legal research.

When getting started with a new topic, reference sources like encyclopedias provide broad overviews of legal topics written by experts that will save you time and direct you to primary sources. Research checklists and overviews of the court system can also be useful.

This guide contains a list of the top legal databases describes how to access them. All TMU students, faculty, and staff have basic access, and available resources are available for Law Students, Law Practice Program candidates, and Law faculty and staff.

This guide also contains links to primary sources of law. Case law is listed by jurisdiction, along with digests and finding aids. For legislative research, a variety of resources are available for tracing the progress of bills into statutes and finding relevant debates and transcripts.

For secondary sources, check out the scholarly journal article resources. Popular sources like podcasts and magazines are listed in keeping current with the law.

Finally, guides to legal citation are available, along with a presentation of the top ten tips for correct citation formatting.

Research help is available for students, faculty, and staff of TMU with legal research questions.

For one-on-one assistance in refining a legal research topic, finding legal information, and using databases and other resources, book a research appointment. Currently, all Law Library research help appointments are being conducted virtually through Zoom. Email the law librarians or book a time directly in their calendars during office hours:

John Papadopoulos is available at john.papadopoulos@torontomu.ca, with bookable office hours
Lisa Levesque is available at lisa.levesque@torontomu.ca, with bookable office hours
Sara Klein is available at sara.b.klein@torontomu.ca, with bookable office hours

Email: for general inquiries, please email lawlibrary@torontomu.ca for assistance with accessing or using legal information resources and one of the Law Library staff will respond to you.

For the most recent service information during COVID-19, see the updates for students, instructors, and researchers.

This guide has been created by the Toronto Metropolitan University Library and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License unless otherwise marked.

Date Updated: August 21, 2023