What you can do freely

All judgments on Find Case Law are available under terms that support open justice and public access to legal information. You don't need permission to:

Read, download, and share

• access any judgment on the service
• download judgments as PDFs
• share links to specific judgments
• print judgments for your use
• save judgments for future reference

Use for legal work

• research cases for legal advice and representation
• prepare arguments and submissions for court
• cite judgments in legal documents and court filings
• provide case law to clients as part of legal services
• reference judgments in legal opinions

This applies whether you're a solicitor, barrister, legal executive, paralegal, or representing yourself.

Academic and educational use

• cite judgments in essays, dissertations, and theses
• use judgments in teaching materials and courses
• include judgments in academic publications and research papers
• analyse judgments for research projects
• create educational resources about case law

Students, teachers, lecturers, and researchers can all use judgments freely.

Journalism and public information

• quote judgments in news articles and reports
• reference judgments in investigative journalism
• include judgments in broadcast media
• use judgments in public interest reporting
• cite judgments in books and publications

Personal use

• read judgments to understand legal issues
• research judgments for personal matters
• learn about how courts work
• follow cases of public interest
• understand legal precedents

Practical examples

Here are real–world scenarios to show what's freely permitted:

Example 1: Law firm research

A solicitor downloads 20 judgments about contract law to research a client's case. She quotes several in her legal advice and cites them in court documents.

Example 2: Student dissertation

A law student writes a dissertation analysing how courts have interpreted employment law. She cites 50 judgments throughout her work and includes extracts in her analysis.

Example 3: Journalist reporting

A journalist writing about a public interest case downloads the judgment, quotes from it in her article, and links to it on the news website.

Example 4: Charity guidance

A housing charity creates guidance documents for tenants facing eviction. They cite relevant court judgments to explain tenants' legal rights.

Example 5: Self–represented litigant

Someone representing themselves in a tribunal downloads judgments about similar cases to understand how their case might be decided and what arguments to make.

Example 6: Academic researcher

A university researcher studying judicial reasoning downloads 200 judgments on a specific legal topic, reads them all, and analyses patterns in judicial decision–making for an academic paper.

Example 7: Legal blog

A lawyer writes a blog explaining recent court decisions, quoting from judgments and providing commentary for other lawyers and the public.

Attribution

When you quote or cite judgments, use standard legal citation formats. You don't need special permission statements, but good practice is to cite:

• the case name and citation (for example, Smith v Jones [2024] EWCA Civ 123)
• the court
• the date of judgment
• the paragraph numbers for specific quotes

No registration required

You don't need to register, create an account, or tell us you're using judgments for any of these free uses. Just go ahead and use them.

What's different from free use?

Free use covers reading, downloading reasonable numbers of judgments, quoting, and citing – even for commercial legal work, journalism, and research.

You need a licence for:

• incorporating large numbers of judgments into commercial products
• bulk downloading substantial portions of the collection for commercial purposes
• computational analysis of judgments at scale for commercial use

See When you need permission for more details about licensed uses.