The European Union Databases User Group (EUDUG) is a group of information professionals, and others, who have an interest in European Union information resources and matters. Here Frederico Rocha (manager of the European Documentation Centre at Cardiff University and chair of EUDUG) and Hester Swift (Foreign and International Law Librarian, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Library and EUDUG secretary) explain the aims of the group, while illustrating the wide and varied range of speakers and organisations that have played a part in its meetings. They also describe how the group has continued to be relevant in this post-Brexit world, while outlining its plans for the future.

In this article Samantha Steer looks at recent market insights as to the expectations of law firm clients, as well as the traits of lawyers, and presents key features from Westlaw Edge UK that address both aspects. She focuses on how Westlaw Edge UK can help lawyers with regard to accuracy, efficiency and confidence.

Bennett Graff, senior acquisitions editor at Gale, reviews the origins and current composition of The Making of Modern Law, a series of individual collections of digitized primary sources devoted to legal history. This overview explores the rationale behind the development of these collections and the research needs that they meet.

Masoud Gerami, Managing Director of vLex Justis, and Aidan Hawes, Head of Commercial Development, discuss the development and launch of the new vLex Justis platform. They describe the process of making decisions behind the content and features available on the platform, and how these will be continually enhanced in the future. They also discuss the global circumstances the platform was launched within and share their goal of meeting customer needs in a future which will bring new ways of working.

In this article, James Harper of LexisNexis UK outlines the company's bi-centenary, and its contribution to the ‘rule of law’. The article will describe the fascinating development of UK law during this period, focusing on key milestones in arguably the largest and most exponential increase in the quantity of English language law the world has seen. It will also outline the range of legal industry innovations which LexisNexis and its companies have spearheaded over the years.

In this article, Masoud Gerami, Managing Director, and Aidan Hawes, Head of Commercial Development, offer an exploration of the history of Justis, and the influence the company has had on the delivery of legal information over its 30-year history. They describe the development of technology over this time, from the rise of optical media through to the features offered by today's online legal research technology, focusing on Justis’ key milestones over this period. They discuss the range of innovations Justis has been responsible for, the changes in the legal research industry, and offer an insight into the future aspirations of the company.

In this digital age, users require immediate access to information. To foster the process of research, the legal fraternity demands efficient online legal information systems. Raj Kumar Bhardwaj provides a view from India and reports on a case study that has been conducted on the use of various legal information databases in the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, India. In his paper, he also reviews and discusses the various aspects relating to legal information retrieval systems, with particular reference to the various essential legal databases that cover Indian law.

Peter Clinch, retired Senior Subject Librarian for Law, Cardiff University and Steven Whittle, Information Systems Manager at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies describe the developments relating to the FLARE Index to Treaties.

This article has been written by Janice Sayer, a freelance information manager, who has extensive and unrivalled experience of working on the content of the Westlaw UK legislation database.

In a paper presented at the 39th Annual BIALL Conference held in Dublin in June 2008, Janine Miller described the development of CanLII by Canadian law societies from its earliest incarnation to the huge free legal resource that it now comprises.

At the 2004 BIALL Conference the Legal Online Resources Directory (LORD) was launched. The Legal Information Group (LIG) is currently developing the Directory to meet the needs of today's information professionals. James Mullan, Chair of LIG, gives a history of the LORD project and an outline of its possible future.

Laura Griffiths provides information about the portals or gateways of qualitatively evaluated links to legal information on the internet, including FLAG, INTUTE: Law and eagle-I, and repositories of information produced by IALS and its partners such as FLARE and the Current Legal Research Topics database.

Heather Memess and Steve Whittle of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies describe the recently launched UK gateway to the internet via the Resource Discovery Network. Intute: Law (previously SOSIG) covers the best internet sources of law for the academic community. They are evaluated by experts at Bristol and IALS and cover a wide range of materials. Information on how to best exploit the system is given, together with details of additional services and functionality offered, including workbooks and an online legal research tutorial.

Diane Raper describes the ongoing project at the University of Kent to upgrade the free Lawlinks portal established nearly ten years ago by Sarah Carter. The emphasis is on ensuring linking is working, establishing new links, and generally making the site more user-friendly, both to Kent law students and the outside world.

Philip Leith, who is a trustee of BAILII, explains its origins in the Society for Computers and Law's suggestion that the government should build a computerised database of English law, to its role today as a major free resource for legal information. He discusses the Australian model, AustLII; describes the current database and considers the interaction between legal publishers and addedvalue and free legal sources both now and in the future.