What to Do With Looseleaf Law Updates and Old Binders

Looseleaf law books come with updates. The binders arrive first, and then packets of new pages turn up several times a year for as long as somebody pays for them, so a set nobody has looked after for a while can have a pile of unopened updates sitting beside it.

What does loose leaf publication mean?

Loose-leaf means "having pages that can easily be taken out and put back again", in the Cambridge Dictionary's words. A looseleaf law book is published in ring binders instead of being bound, so the publisher can keep it up to date a few pages at a time.

It works like the updates on your phone. You keep the same phone, and every so often an update changes the parts that need changing. With a looseleaf, the update is a packet of new pages: you take the old pages out of the binder, put the new ones in, and the book is current again without anyone buying a new edition.

Lawyers use looseleafs most for the subjects that change fastest, such as tax, employment law and financial regulation, because a bound book on a fast-moving subject falls behind quickly and a looseleaf can keep pace.

Several of the big sets on law library shelves are bound volumes with a looseleaf service alongside to keep them current:

• The Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents has a looseleaf service of six binders, which covers the changes to each volume of the set since that volume was published.
• Atkin's Court Forms has a one-volume looseleaf service, updated every quarter. It holds a noter-up, which is a running list of what has changed in every volume since it was published, and a section with all the latest forms.
• Halsbury's Statutes is kept current by an annual Cumulative Supplement and a quarterly looseleaf service.

Other works live entirely in binders. Harvey on Industrial Relations and Employment Law, the employment law work published by LexisNexis, is one of them.

How looseleaf law updates work

Each update arrives as a packet of new pages with a sheet of filing instructions. The instructions tell you which pages to take out of which binder and which new pages go in their place, and the job is done page by page.

How often the packets come depends on the work:

Updates go in oldest first, because each one is written for the binders as they stood after the one before. LexisNexis's filing instructions for one of its American looseleafs begin with exactly that check: if the set is not filed up to the previous release, do not file the new one.

Filing takes time, which is why it so often falls behind. The Bodleian Law Library in Oxford wrote in 2013 that its filing went on every day, and that its weekend team had just filed a single update 28 centimetres tall. When the Internet for Lawyers newsletter published lawyers' views of looseleafs in 2012, one of them called the updating "a real hassle" and warned that if it is done wrongly "you end up reading or relying upon an out of date page unknowingly."

What to do with the old pages you take out

Pages replaced by an update are meant to be thrown away, so once the new pages are in, the old ones can go in the paper recycling. That is where the Bodleian's 28-centimetre update went too.

Before they go, flick through the pile to check no new pages have slipped in with the old ones, because a missing page leaves a gap in the book.

What to do with looseleaf updates that have piled up

The question that settles it is whether anyone still reads the set.

If someone does, file the updates, oldest first, and the set is current again. Give a big backlog to one person who has time to do it carefully, since a page filed in the wrong place can leave someone relying on an out-of-date page without knowing it.

If nobody reads it any more, there is no point filing the backlog. Perhaps the lawyer who used it has retired, or the firm now does its research online. Leave the updates unopened beside the binders, and stop the next ones coming.

Either way, keep the unfiled updates with the set. They belong to it, in the same way the supplements and index volumes belong to a set of bound books, and they show how far its updates run.

When to cancel looseleaf law updates

Cancel as soon as you know nobody will use the set again, because the updates keep coming, and keep being charged for, until you do.

If updates are still arriving, someone is paying for them, and the subscription may renew itself each year. Sweet & Maxwell's terms for its yearly looseleaf subscriptions, for example, say a subscription "will automatically renew in future years unless you tell us otherwise", with updates "delivered automatically as soon as they become available". To give you an idea of the cost, Bloomsbury Professional lists a subscription renewal for Hershman and McFarlane: Children Law and Practice at £715, its price on 24 October 2026.

Check your publisher's notice period well before the renewal date. Under those Sweet & Maxwell terms, the publisher tells you the new price at least 60 days before each yearly renewal, and either side can cancel in writing at least 30 days before the renewal starts. So the renewal notice is your reminder: if nobody will use the set again, that is the moment to write. Your own publisher's terms set the dates for your set.

Once you cancel, the set stops at the last update that was filed. It still reads exactly as it did, and it falls further behind as the law changes, like a phone that no longer takes updates. For a lawyer who needs today's law, that matters a great deal. One of the lawyers in that 2012 newsletter put it bluntly: "Discontinuing with subscription makes it useless."

Can I sell a looseleaf set whose updates have stopped?

It is worth asking, because the answer depends on the title and on how far behind the set is. Lawyers buy looseleafs to have the law up to date. So a set filed up to last month is worth more than one that stopped years ago, in the same way that a practitioner text several editions behind is worth less than a recent one.

We buy practitioner texts as part of a collection, including the Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents and Atkin's Court Forms, and we buy Halsbury's Statutes. When you send us photos of a set, include its looseleaf binders and any unfiled updates beside them, because we value collections from photos, and a picture of the binders with the updates next to them shows us what is there.

If a set's updates stopped so long ago that it has little resale value, we can talk about collecting it free of charge.

If you were thinking of donating the set instead, keep the binders with the volumes they update. The International Law Book Facility, the charity that sends English legal texts to organisations overseas, does not accept supplements to major works where the main work is not included. It does accept Atkin's Court Forms and the Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents, though it turns away Halsbury's Statutes, and books more than ten years old unless they are the last edition of a text. Our guide to donating law books sets out who takes what.

Do I keep the binders?

Yes. Keep the pages in their binders, and the binders on the shelf beside the volumes they belong to. A binder holds hundreds of pages in the right order, and its spine tells anyone who picks it up which work it is and which part. Take the pages out and you are left with a stack of paper that is hard to identify and harder to value.

That holds when a set is being collected, too. We take the binders down from the shelves and pack them ourselves with the volumes they belong to, then collect them free anywhere in the UK, so there is nothing for you to box or take apart.

If a set really is past use and you are recycling it yourself, the binders need one extra step. Westminster City Council's guidance is that the metal levers inside cardboard ring binders damage the machinery at the paper recycling mill, so they must come out before the card goes in the recycling. Plastic binders, and binders with the metal still in, go in general waste. Your own council's rules may differ, so check them. Westminster also suggests asking a local school, church or charity whether it could use the binders before you throw them away.

Getting a valuation for a looseleaf set

Photograph the shelves so we can read the spine of every binder and every bound volume. The valuation form takes the photos, or you can WhatsApp them to 07920 748314, and we will tell you which sets we can buy. If you are clearing the whole library, our checklist for preparing a law library for collection covers the rest.