The emergence of the National Assembly for Wales as a devolved legislature producing first Measures and now Acts, together with the establishment of a Welsh Government with a range of powers to make secondary legislation, has added a new layer of complication to the already over-complicated legislative landscape of the United Kingdom. This article, written by Daniel Greenberg, examines briefly some of the resulting complications.

If Scotland votes ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ how will its relationship change with the remainder of the UK? A ‘yes’ vote will have huge financial, political and legal implications. This article, written by Candace Guite, considers the current role of the UK Supreme Court in Scotland, the recent conflict (to which the title alludes) and it reflects on Scotland's potential international status. The UK Government has argued that it would be regarded as the continuator state and an independent Scotland would be a successor state, and so, in the event of a ‘yes’ vote Scotland would have to re-apply for entry to the European Union and the United Nations. However, there are arguments to support the alternative option, that Scotland could be regarded as a co-equal successor state with England, and thus would retain EU and UN membership.

This article by Sue Westcott discusses some of the changes in government policy since the election of the Coalition Government and the implications of local decision making for public services. These changes in turn will change the type of sources that will be relevant to legal information work relating to public policy.

Alison Lorrimer, who works at the Departmental Solicitor's Office Library in Belfast, reflects on how the sources of legal information have been affected by the changing political landscape in Northern Ireland.

“Wales, it has to be said, has come a very long way in a short time.” was the opening line by Sir David Lloyd Jones in his speech on, “The Law Commission and Law Reform in a Devolved Wales” to the Wales Governance Centre Annual Lecture in Aberystwyth in March 2013.1 This brief overview by Lillian Stevenson attempts to discuss this statement using selected documents published after the 2011 referendum in which the people of Wales voted in favour of extending the law making powers of the National Assembly.

Legal education in each of the jurisdictions varies in the requirements of its lawyers. In this paper, Ruth Bird, addresses the requirements in each country to study law; the specific requirement for foreign law graduates to study law, and which bodies regulate legal education. The answers to these questions are presented in a series of charts to provide a degree of clarity for the reader.

There is no doubt that the ‘Google Generation’ or ‘Digital Natives’ are entering legal education with a very different set of skills than those who came before them. In this article Daniel Bates examines the precise nature of the skillset of those beginning their legal careers, and considers his experiences teaching research skills to law students at the University of Cambridge for over a decade. Furthermore, he considers how students' educational and cultural background in the areas of research and information literacy should inform the teaching of legal skills.

In 2008, BIALL held a pre-conference workshop in Dublin entitled “Back to Basics: Cataloguing and Classification”. The workshop raised some interesting questions about the quality of cataloguing training provided by library schools and law libraries. Although cataloguing in British law libraries has been the subject of research, no study has yet explored cataloguing in Irish law libraries. This study by Clare O'Dwyer redresses this lack of information by focusing exclusively on the Irish context. The perceptions and expectations of cataloguers are examined using a multiple case study design combining interviews and questionnaires. The libraries selected for case study are representative of the three main types of law libraries in Ireland: a professional society law library, a government law library and a law firm library. Following analysis and discussion of the research findings, the study concludes with a series of recommendations regarding the curriculum for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and further training of cataloguers in Irish law libraries.

In this, the third of a trilogy of articles for LIM written by Raj Kumar Bhardwaj, the author addresses the move from print to digital legal information within the Indian judicial system. He describes briefly the historical development of the legal system and the enormous backlog of cases that are pending throughout the court structure, before turning attention to the role of ICT in the legal system and the moves under way to create a more efficient electronic administration for the judiciary in India.

This piece, by Celine Kelly, is a report on a paper that was presented at the JSI 2013 in Melbourne and explores the key points made by Andrew Godwin on the globalisation and liberalisation of legal services in the Australasia region. The talk included a discussion on the pros and cons of globalisation and case studies of legal services in South Korea, Singapore, Japan, China, India and Australia.