Worried about the cost of hiring a lawyer?
There's absolutely no substitute for professional legal advice.
Having said that, there's lots of useful, general background
information on the Web, if you know where to look. To that end, we've
compiled a list of over 200 of the best legal
websites we could find, covering everything from family and contract law to
employment law and intellectual property.
We've done the hard work so you don't have to. We've included several
different guides to most topics, so you can compare and choose
the approach you like best.
Introduction
""It is better to be a mouse in a cat's mouth than a man in a lawyer's hands"
Spanish proverb.
Two things in life may be certain (death and taxes), but a third one
crops up quite often as well: the need to find yourself a good lawyer
when things don't turn out quite as you'd planned.
For some things in life, like buying a home or signing a complex
business contract, using a qualified, professional lawyer is pretty
much essential. For a whole variety of other legal issues, you might be
surprised just how much you can achieve on your own. Generally, there's
no substitute for professional advice. You wouldn't pull out your
own teeth with a pair of pliers or attempt or your own heart
surgery—and in just the same way, attempting your own legal work can
have a nasty habit of backfiring. Having said that, there's lots of
useful, general background information on the Web, if you know where to
look. Wise up and read the background before you call in the
professionals and you'll know what they're talking about—you might even
save yourself some money!
Top tips
I am not a lawyer but I've used barristers, lawyers, and solicitors
many times. From my own experience, here are ten top tips for working
with (and getting the most out of) legal beagles:
- Brief yourself first: Read up on the issue as much as you can so
you understand exactly what the lawyers are talking about. You'd be
surprised how much you can learn just by thumbing through a few law
books on the topic in question.
- Study the form: Life can seem surprisingly novel when you're
young but, the older you get, the more you realize most things have
happened before. The same is true of legal problems. Most legal
disputes have happened to someone else before you arrived on the
scene. So find out what's happened in similar cases before, what
action people took, who won and who lost. Do your research.
- State your terms: Lawyers love to heap all their small-print
"terms and conditions" on us at every opportunity, so make sure
you do the same. Set out your terms before you start. One of your terms
is that you expect every single item of expense and every piece of work
that you will be billed to be fully listed and detailed on the
final invoice you're sent. Make sure you get this agreed to at the
start.
- Pick your lawyer with care: Get a good lawyer by reputation or by
recommendation. Don't just pick someone from the phone book because you
like the look of the typeface they use in their advertisement. What's
their track record like? Ask them!
- Brief them clearly: Give crystal clear instructions to lawyers.
Tell them precisely what you want them to do and what you don't. Under
no circumstances give them a free hand to do exactly what they wish,
unless you're happy to pay bills that are ten times higher than you
expect.
- Remember that lawyers are some of the highest-paid people in the
world. Law firms are businesses: every lawyer in a law practice works
to what's called a billing target. He or she has to bring in so much
business for the firm. Generally speaking, lawyers are money-makers
first and foremost; most of them are not knights in shining armour
(though, thankfully, a few of them are). They'll be looking to maximize
their income from people like you. Remember this at all times.
- Watch out for lawyers who take on no-hope cases to make money: A
good lawyer will tell you if a case you want to bring is a hopeless
waste of time—and stop you wasting your money. A bad lawyer will take
on your case regardless, simply to make money from your gullibility. It
could pay to take several legal opinions before you commit yourself to
any expensive course of legal action.
- Don't buy into legal-eze: We're not in Bleak House
anymore. If your lawyer can't communicate in plain English, find one
who can.
- Remember they're only advisers: Remember who's wearing the
trousers. Take their advice, because that's what you're paying for, but
you make the decisions. If you're presented with choices by your
lawyer, run them past some trusted friends to help you pick the best
option.
- Learn from history: History tells us the only winners from an
awful lot of legal disputes are the lawyers. So, before embarking on
something angry, bitter, expensive, and embarrassing, try to find other
avenues of resolving your problems first. Humble pie can
be an incredibly cheap dish. It's hard to swallow, but the taste is
often quickly forgotten. For consumer disputes, there
are all kinds of consumer advocates who may be better able to
help you than a lawyer (in the UK, for example, Trading Standards
Officers and Citizens Advice Bureau are particularly helpful).
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Contents—what's on this page
General guides
Advice Guide: The free site
from the totally independent UK charity Citizens Advice Bureau. A great
guide to your rights, including a huge range of helpful factsheets. UK
site.- Citizens Information: An
Irish government website offering a huge range of advice on legal and
consumer topics.
- TheSite.org: Lots of advice for
young people, including legal advice.
- Free Advice: Helps you find
legal advice and lawyers on a wide range of common topics. US site.
- Advice Now: Independent,
not-for-profit site providing legal advice on a wide range of legal
issues.
- Community Legal Advice:
A range of free leaflets and factsheets on a wide range of legal and
rights issues.
- Guides to common legal problems:
A range of helpful leaflets from the UK Law Society.
- Your Rights: Clearly
explained by Liberty.
- Open Directory Project: Law: A
subject-by-subject listing of legal websites (currently over 24,000 of
them).
- Law
Internet Resources: A huge, well-compiled collection of legal links
from the Parliament of Australia (covers worldwide law, however).
- ExpertLaw: A huge collection of
legal advice, including a directory of expert witnesses, information
about litigation support services, a library of legal advice, and
forums where you can ask your own questions.
- Duhaime Law: A large collection of
legal resources provided by a Canadian law firm: "Since most lawyers
will only fully share their information for money, I thought to do the
opposite." And well done to you, Mr Duhaime.
- Wex: A collaboratively
written legal dictionary and encyclopedia hosted by Cornell Law School.
- JURIST: (US) "A Web-based
legal news and real-time legal research service powered by a
mostly-volunteer team of over 30 part-time law student reporters,
editors and Web developers."
- MegaLaw.com: A handy directory of
legal resources (US site).
- Help
with legal advice: A general guide for older citizens from the UK
charity Age Concern.
Civil law
Some useful introductory pages from BBC One Life:
Criminal law
Some more useful introductions from BBC One Life:
Choosing a lawyer
Accidents and injuries
Company law
General
Setting up a business
Consumer rights
- Advice on
Consumer Issues: Independent consumer rights advice from the UK
government's Consumer Direct website.
- Trading Standards Central:
A guide to trading standards offices in the UK for consumers,
businesses, and schools. How to find your nearest trading standard
office and how they can help you.
- Problems
with Goods and Services: a guide from Community Legal Services
Direct.
- Which?
Consumer rights: details of which campaigns.
- BBC
consumer guides: "Brush up on your consumer knowledge, ensuring you
know where you stand when making a complaint." Covers buying and
selling cars, consumer law, credit, disability law, employment, eating
out, homes, mortgages, medical matters, shopping, and quite a lot more.
- BBC
consumer law guide: Explains the basics of consumer law, the sale
of goods act, supply of services, and the civil and criminal laws that
protect you.
- BBC
consumer guide: food issues: Explains food safety issues, additives
and preservatives, misleading labels, eating out (including service
charges), good service and hygiene, and remedies if things go wrong.
- BBC
consumer guide: goods and services: Explains your rights when
buying goods and services, how to complain, how to contract trading
standards, and more.
- BBC
consumer guide: shopping: Includes online shopping tips and
consumer advice and what to do when things go wrong.
Contract law
- Contract:
An introductory article in Wikipedia covers basic concepts like
consideration, estoppel, written and oral contracts.
- Contract
law articles and FAQs: A collection of contrast law advice from
FreeAdvice.com
- Contract
law: A good, simple introduction to basic contract law concepts
from the American Water Works Association. US site
- Contract
law: An introduction from Duhaime Law. Canadian site.
- Working
without a signed agreement: Some cautionary advice and tips from
attorney Ivan Hoffman.
- Contracts:
Information from the Wex law encyclopedia.
- Contracts:
A collection of resources from the JURIST Legal Education Network.
Contracts of employment
See Employment and labor
law.
Court
Criminal law
Serious crimes that may affect you
Some useful introductory pages from BBC One Life:
There are also lots of really helpful victim support pages on
TheSite.org, mainly intended for young people:
Victim support
Advice for people accused of crimes
Discrimination and equality
Sex and race
Disability
Other equality issues
Employment and labor law
- Employment
contracts and conditions: Definitive information from the
Direct.gov website, including contracts of employment, changes of
employment conditions, breach of contract, rights for voluntary
workers, and rights for part-time and self-employed people.
- Contracts
of employment: Your rights, clearly explained by Liberty.
- Contracts
of employment: Clear advice from The Citizens Advice Bureau.
- Employment:
a guide from Community Legal Services Direct.
- BBC
guide to employment law: Explains statements of terms, how much
notice you should be given, wrongful dismissal, sex and race
discrimination, unfair dismissal, and redundancy.
- Contract
of employment: a discussion of employment terms from Oasis, the
Irish rights website.
Environment and planning
Estates—wills and probate
European law
Family and relationships
General
- Useful factsheets from Community Legal Services Direct:
Marriage and partnerships
Divorce and separation
Children
- Adoption:
The legal procedures you have to go through to adopt a child.
Definitive information from HM Courts Service, includes guidance on the
Adoption and Children Act 2002 and other relevant legislation.
- Care
Proceedings: a guide from Community Legal Services Direct.
- Education:
a guide from Community Legal Services Direct.
Senior citizens
Domestic violence
Housing and property—including landlord and tenant
General
Home buying
Renting and renting out
Gardens
Human rights and civil liberties
- Your Rights: Clearly
explained by Liberty. This website aims to provide an easily understood
guide to the Human Rights Act 1998, explaining its relevance and impact
in many different areas of law ranging from rights of privacy to rights
of peaceful protest.
Your Rights is written by expert lawyers, but intended primarily for
people who have no specialist legal knowledge.
- The
Human Rights Act : a guide from Community Legal Services Direct.
- Human
Rights Act 1998: Full text of the Act
Immigration and asylum
Intellectual property
Litigation
See also Court.
- Litigation: Useful
resources on the FreeAdvice website.
- Lawsuit:
a brief guide from Wikipedia.
- Public
Citizen: The litigation wing of the Public Citizen advocacy group:
"The Group specializes in cases involving health and safety regulation,
consumer rights, access to the courts, open government, and the First
Amendment, including Internet free speech." (US site)
- Litigation:
A collection of links and resources from MegaLaw.com (US site).
Money and tax
Neighbours
Organizations and official contacts
Protest
Statutes—the laws themselves
Case law
- Free
case law resources on the Web: Useful links to free sites from
Delia Venables.
- Law Index Pro:
"Lawindexpro is a case law database. We provide links to UK and
European judgements, note up significant cases, and cross reference
older cases as they are cited."
Everything else—miscellaneous topics
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