Answers

Getting Started with Practical Law

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Practical Law is an online legal know-how service. It provides peer-reviewed resources, such as practice notes, standard documents and current awareness updates. It works alongside Westlaw UK, linking expert guidance with primary legal materials. This makes it a valuable tool for Law students, especially when preparing for legal practice.

Logging in

If you are already logged in to Arden's single-sign-in (e.g. iLearn), you can access Practical Law directly through the library's A-Z List of Databases.

If you have been logged out of the database, you can click on the login button. Click on the Access through OpenAthens. After that, you should go straight into Practical Law.

How to perform a search in the Practical Law

• On the Practical Law home page, you can browse the content by practice areas, sectors and resource types.
   
• You can also use the search at the top of the page to look for specific materials.
   
• In the top right corner, you will find options to view your search history, access your folders, see your favourite pages, and manage your alerts.
   
• Further down the page, you can explore collection sets, featured content and the PLC magazine.

• You can explore content from a wide range of subject areas.

          Each document includes a summary that highlights what it covers.

          Use the filters on the left side to narrow down the content by type. 

• When you click to enter a document, on the left is the table of contents to help you navigate. 

          Quick access to related content and documents using the Explore Related Content button on
          the top right.

          Delivery and action icons are displayed down the right-hand side.

• You can search for content using the search bar at the top of the page. The search is automatically filtered to the Practice Area or Topic you are viewing.
  As you start typing, Practical Law will suggest terms or documents that match what you might be looking for. You can select one of these suggestions, or keep typing to view more options.

• Click a suggestion term to run a search. Your search results will appear sorted by relevance. Each result lists the document name, document type and whether it is maintained. Use the filters on the left to narrow down your results, or simply click on any link in the list ot open that document.

• Standard documents are organised by clauses and include integrated drafting notes to help you understand key points as you read.

          • Use the table of contents on the left to review the structure of the document and navigate
            directly to specific clauses.

          • Any terms you have searched for will appear highlighted in yellow throughout the document.

          The navigation icons at the top allow you to quickly move between occurrences of your search
           terms or turn off highlighting using the checkbox.

           On the right side, action items give you options to deliver the document or open it in Microsoft
           Word if you want to continue drafting or editing.

Related FAQs

Getting started with Westlaw eBooks

Getting started with Westlaw UK

Further guidance

To learn more about the Practical Law and how it can support your studies, you can explore a variety of topics such as getting started, practice areas and topics, searching and delivering content, drafting documents, key features, AI research, and so on. You can work through these topics by visiting the Product Training - UK | Thomson Reuters page.

Need more help

If you would like more help, email us at Library@arden.ac.uk or book a librarian appointment