Abstract In many developing countries, law students face challenges in accessing authoritative legal resources, including statutes, case law, and journal articles, due to the high costs of subscription-based databases such as LexisNexis, HeinOnline, and Westlaw. In Nigeria, additional subscription online resources are available, including LawPavilion, Legalpedia, and Compulaw. These platforms are all rich in content and currency; however, they are often unaffordable for both law students and law libraries. To overcome these challenges, there are many initiatives and movements administered by government institutions, universities, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provide access to both primary and secondary sources of law. Included in the latter group are the Legal Information Institutes (LIIs), Google Scholar, the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), and Justia. This paper examines the role of free legal databases as an alternative for law students and how these freely accessible platforms can support the access gaps that subscription-based legal research tools have often created. The study is conceptual in nature, with reliance on existing literature and analysis of freely available legal information resources to support legal education.
Raliat Alabi (Fri,) studied this question.
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