What to Do With Old Law Books in Scotland

Old law books in Scotland have the same ways out as anywhere else in the UK: sell the sets, donate the recent books, take the rare ones to a specialist and recycle what is past use. What changes north of the border is the law inside the books, because Scotland has its own legal system and its own law books, and that decides who will take them.

Here is how to tell which kind you have, and what to do with each.

English law books or Scots law books?

Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. Together with English law and Northern Irish law, it is one of the three legal systems of the United Kingdom, and it has its own law reports, from its own courts, and its own encyclopaedia of the law.

So a law library in Scotland can hold two kinds of book. Some are Scots law books, about the law of Scotland. Others are English law books, about the law of England and Wales.

Often the title on the spine tells you which. Halsbury's Laws of England, for example, says it in its name: it is an encyclopaedia of the law in England and Wales. The All England Law Reports are English too. They are a series of law reports, which collect judges' decisions one volume after another, and they cover cases from the courts of England and Wales.

It matters because the two kinds of book can go to different places. One of the donation routes further down will not take Scots law books at all.

Can I sell old law books in Scotland?

Yes. We buy law book collections and sets, and our free collection reaches anywhere in the UK, which includes every part of Scotland. We do the packing too, taking the books from the shelves ourselves, so however far north they are, the collection costs you nothing and there is nothing for you to box.

The English series make up most of the full list of law books we buy: the All England Law Reports, The Law Reports and the Weekly Law Reports, Halsbury's Laws and Halsbury's Statutes, Lloyd's Law Reports, the English Reports and the practitioner texts that sit beside them. We value them as sets, by the same things that decide value anywhere: which set it is, whether the run has gaps, which edition it is and what condition it is in. Our guide to whether old law books are worth anything explains each of those.

If the shelves hold Scots law sets as well, photograph them with everything else, and we will tell you which sets we can buy. If some of the books, Scots or English, have little resale value, we can talk about collecting them free of charge as well. So if your library is a mix of the two kinds of book, send photos of the whole room.

Selling your law books to us starts with photos of the shelves, or a list if you have one. We value the collection for free, and if you go ahead, we send the payment to your bank account.

Donating law books in Scotland

The International Law Book Facility, or ILBF, is a charity that gives second-hand legal books to not-for-profit organisations. Its rules matter more in Scotland than anywhere else, because its list of books it does not accept includes Scots law materials. So Scots law books cannot go to the ILBF, however new and clean they are.

For English law books, the ILBF accepts practitioner texts, university law textbooks and legal encyclopaedias such as individual volumes of Halsbury's Laws no more than ten years old. It turns away law reports unless they are complete sets in bound volumes, Halsbury's Statutes, and books more than ten years old unless they are the last edition of a text. You must contact it before sending anything, and it cannot pay the cost of getting the books to its store, so the carriage is yours to arrange.

If you run a law library, the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians has a Duplicates Exchange, through which libraries give away or sell unwanted materials three times a year. Our guide to donating law books sets out who takes what in full.

Rare and old law books

A few law books are worth money as old books, whatever law is printed in them. The Law Society's guide to disposing of a law library says that "legal books are more likely to be valuable if they were printed before 1800." Check the date at the foot of the title page, where the oldest books often give it in Roman numerals.

For a book like that, a specialist in old books is worth asking. The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association, the trade body for dealers in rare books, lets you search its members by town and by speciality, so you can look for a dealer near you who knows law books. Its own book fairs include one in Edinburgh. Before you get in touch, have the title, the author's name, the date and the publisher's name ready, because those are what a bookseller needs to look a book up.

The Law Society also suggests auction for rare legal books. It names Bloomsbury Auctions, Sotheby's and Bonhams as auctioneers that deal with them, and says to check that any auctioneer you use has experience of selling legal material.

We buy rare law books too. If you think there is one among a collection, include it in your photos and tell us.

Recycling old law books

Recycling is for the books that really are past use: water-damaged, mouldy or falling apart. Your council will tell you whether hardback books can go in your recycling and how. If the books come to us as part of a collection, you do not need to sort those out first; send photos of everything and we will tell you which sets we can buy.

Getting a valuation in Scotland

Photograph each bay of shelving square-on, in good light, so the titles on the spines can be read, since the title often shows whether a set is Scots law or English. Send the photos on WhatsApp to 07920 748314 or through the valuation form, and tell us whereabouts in Scotland the books are, by town or postcode. We will value the collection for free. For every option side by side, our guide to what to do with old law books covers the rest.