LibGuides: Foreign Law Research for U.S. Attorneys: Guides to Research by Country

Guides to Legal Research by Country

You should always start your foreign law research with a guide to researching the law of that country.

Generally, the most current and useful guides are those in NYU Law's GlobaLex series:

GlobaLex Foreign Law Research
Click on "Foreign Law Research" for an alphabetical list of guides by country, most written by experienced attorneys and librarians from the country. Make sure to click UPDATE to view the most recent version of the guide.

GlobaLex also includes a general guide to foreign law research that is a good starting point if you have not researched foreign law before:

GlobaLex Basic Guide to Researching Foreign Law
This introductory guide to foreign law research provides a general overview of basic strategies and includes specific sections on family law, immigration/citizenship, tax, intellectual property, commercial law, and transnational litigation.

There are also several other free country-by-country guides to legal research:

Bodleian Law Library, Oxford Guides to legal research by jurisdiction
These free online guides provides links to a range of helpful research information for each country or region, such as gazettes, reputable country-specific research guides (including those published by GlobaLex, LLRX, and different law schools), and additional useful websites.
Yale Law School's Country by Country Guide to Foreign Law Research
This free online guide lists countries alphabetically and provides links to a range of helpful research information for each country, such as gazettes, reputable country-specific research guides (including those published by GlobaLex, LLRX, and different law schools), and additional useful websites.
NYU Foreign Collections by Jurisdiction
This online resource provides links to primary sources, government websites, and additional research guides for a selection of countries.
The World Law Guide
This web page links to legislation, case law, law firms, law school, and more by country.
Bluebook Table T.2 Foreign Jurisdictions
The Bluebook's tables for foreign jurisdictions list relevant legal publications for statutes, administrative materials, and cases and are now freely available online.

Finally, the UCLA Law Library purchases three subscription guides to foreign law research:

Foreign Law Guide by Thomas H. Reynolds & Arturo A. Flores.
Call Number: Online & Reference K38 .R49 1989
Publication Date: Regularly updated
This guide provides overviews of each country's legal system followed by where to find primary law and whether it is available in English translation. Although it does not contain everything that is out there, it is almost always the best place to start when trying to locate the law of a foreign jurisdiction. It is most useful for it's lists of laws by subject which allows you to quickly locate, for example, a country's laws on business transactions or family law.
Multinational Sources Compared by Alena L. Wolotira; Sherry L. Lysen
Call Number: Online & K85 .W65 2017
Publication Date: 2017-01-01
Many books collect foreign laws and guides to foreign laws on specific topics, such as intellectual property, family law, or arbitration, often with English translations. Multinational Sources Compared indexes these books by country and subject so that, for example, you can look up all books that include information on Chinese law or look up all books that cover intellectual property by country.
Guide to International Legal Research by George Washington Journal of International Law and Economics.
Call Number: Reference Desk KZ1234 .G85 & Lexis
Publication Date: Updated annually
This guide by George Washington University's international law journal provides country-by-country and subject-by-subject lists of books, websites, and other resources for foreign and international legal research.