Topic Research Guides: Legal Theory

Find books on Natural Law and Legal Philosophy at various numbers such as 170, 190, 320-323 and 340, find books on Jurisprudence at 340.1.

Subject terms to search in the catalogue include: Law -- Philosophy -- History; Jurisprudence -- History; Sociological jurisprudence; Natural law.

There are a number of useful texts in this area with regular editions being released. Check the catalogue for details of the current edition.

• Asking the Law Question / Margaret Davies
• An introduction to English legal history / by J.H. Baker
• Jurisprudence / S Ratnapala
• Jurisprudence of Liberty (2011) / S Ratnapala and G A Moens
• Jurisprudence: Theory and Context / Brian Bix
• Legal Theory  / Jonathan Crowe
• Lloyd's Introduction to Jurisprudence / M D A Freeman
• Legal Theories: Contexts and Practices / M Leiboff and M Thomas
• A Short History of Western Legal Theory /J M Kelly
• Understanding Jurisprudence: An Introduction to Legal Theory / Raymon Wacks
• Western legal theory : history, concepts, and perspectives (2013) / Augusto Zimmermann

Legal Theory crosses the boundaries of many disciplines.  Legal databases, particularly Australian databases such as Lexis Advance and Westlaw Australia,  are not significant resources for this area of research.

Students need to consider broadening their research to include the indexes listed below as well looking closely at the journals on HeinOnline, Westlaw UK and Thomson Reuters Classic Westlaw.

 Indexes:

• Library Search: this includes LegalTrac, HeinOnline, Gale Academic OneFile, JSTOR, ProQuest and other general indexes
• Informit including AGIS Plus Text for Australian legal articles
• Web of Science with Conference Proceedings

Journals:

• The Western Australian Jurist.  Produced by the Western Australian Legal Theory Association at Murdoch University, the journal produces articles on a wide range of legal theory topics.  This is not yet covered by any indexing service.

Articles:

• Raisch, Marylin, "Mapping the Civil Law World: Ancient Outlines" on FCIL Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries, DipLawMatic Dialogues (1 June 2018).