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Guide to Finding Law Journals and Journal Articles

Commercial Databases

Westlaw Edge Canada

  • Full text Canadian articles can be searched through the "Articles and Newsletters" database (link on the landing page)
  • Full-text of International Journals can be searched through the "World Journals" database (link on the International materials page)
  • Canadian content available to the U of T community via the library catalogue; log in using your UTORid if you are off campus.
  • Law students have individual passwords.

Lexis Advance Quicklaw

  • Full-text coverage of Canadian can be searched through the "Law Reviews and Journals" database (link on the landing page)
  • Full-text journals from the UK, US, France and Australia are also available under "Browse" then "Source".
  • Available to the U of T community via the library catalogue; log in using your UTORid if you are off campus.
  • Law students have individual passwords.

HeinOnline Law Journal Library

  • Comprehensive full-text coverage of more than 1600 law and law-related periodicals
  • Available online through UTL

Free Databases

Social Science Research Network (Legal Scholarship Network)

  • Open access repository of academic papers, working papers, and draft papers
  • Very good source for recent academic unpublished papers.
  • Though not peer-reviewed, these articles are often academic working papers and most are eventually published in scholarly legal journals. Many are free to the public in PDF format although registration is required.
  • Owned by Elsevier

Digital Commons Network: The Law Commons

  • Open access database of full-text academic journal articles from over 400 law schools from the US and throughout the world.
  • Owned by Elsevier

Free Full-text Online Law Review/Law Journal Search Engine

  • Maintained by the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center
  • Search over 300 online law reviews and law journals, as well as document repositories (e.g., SSRN and bepress) and related publications such as Congressional Research Service reports.

Google Scholar

  • Google Scholar is not a database in itself but provides links to full-text material available online.
  • The University of Toronto Libraries have licensed thousands of online journals that you can use free as a member of the U of T community and which can be accessed via Google Scholar on or off campus. If you are off campus you can link to these resources seamlessly once you configure Google Scholar to know that you are a member of the U of T community. To do that, go to Google Scholar and then:
    • Click on the drop-down menu on the top left
    • Click on Settings and then Library Links
    • Under Library Links type University of Toronto
    • Check the box "University of Toronto Libraries - Get full text"
    • Click Save
  • Going forward, if any of your search results are available via U of T Libraries, you will be able to connect to them through the library catalogue and/or databases.
  • If you are on campus, Google Scholar will automatically configure itself properly. You only need to follow the above steps if you are off campus.

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

  • Includes over 600 law journals.