All legal research exam questions can be answered using either LexisLibrary or Westlaw, however each service has particular strengths, and you will save yourself invaluable time on the assessment if you are able to identify which service to use for a particular strand of research. Hence, candidates should be perfectly proficient on both databases.
By way of example, some helpful literature may be found only on LexiLibrary, such as Halsbury’s Laws of England, whereas other sources, e.g., Chitty on Contracts, is only available on Westlaw.
Please keep in mind that you are given 60 minutes to conduct the entire legal research assessment from which you are advised to devote only 45 minutes for the actual online search, where the remaining time should be used to read the question, plan your research, write your legal advice to the client, and provide the legal reasoning mentioning any key sources or authorities.
On the technical side, some candidates have found in the past that during the assessment one of the databases was suffering from technical difficulties, so being proficient on the other database could be the difference between passing and failing.
QLTS School has made special arrangements with both LexisNexis and Westlaw to exclusively allow our candidates remote access to LexisLibrary and Westlaw content, from anywhere in the world. The arrangements provide you with the opportunity to benefit from 6 months’ access for £200 (VAT is not applicable) for each of the databases (£400 in total for LexisLibrary and Westlaw).