Online Legal Research Subscription / Online Legal Library for Local Authority Legal Services

Carmarthenshire County Council wishes to undertake preliminary market engagement in relation to the provision of an online legal research and legal library subscription service for its in-house Legal Services team. The Council invites interested organisations to register their interest and request further information in relation to the provision of this service. This invitation is issued for information-gathering and early market engagement purposes only and does not constitute a commitment to proceed with any future procurement process.

The Council is exploring the market for a secure, cloud-based online legal research platform capable of providing comprehensive access to UK legislation, retained EU law, case law, legal commentary, practical guidance, precedents, legal encyclopaedias, reference works, training and support. The requirement is primarily to support in-house local authority lawyers delivering legal advice and services across a wide range of Council functions.

The Council requires market insight on whether suitable providers can offer a comprehensive legal research service covering primary and secondary legislation from the UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly and Welsh Senedd; retained EU law applicable in the UK; reported and relevant unreported UK cases and tribunal decisions; practical guidance; authoritative commentary; legal reference books; legal encyclopaedias; and editable/downloadable precedents. A critical requirement is the ability to reflect the latest legal position in Wales in devolved areas of law, rather than providing English-centric content with only limited Welsh coverage.

The Council is particularly interested in understanding the availability of one-stop-shop or integrated legal research platforms, including solutions that incorporate reliable AI-assisted legal search, natural language searching, document analysis, alerts, saved searches, usage analytics, remote access, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, onboarding, training and ongoing account management.