CRIV CONNECTION

Author: Jean Davis, Associate Librarian for International Law, Brooklyn Law School & CRIV Committee member

In May 2025, Oxford University Press (OUP) launched a new subscription product: Oxford Law Pro. It includes 600+ books, an AI Research Assistant, and a developing collection of Expert Essentials articles on “critical topics.” Expert Essentials initially provides 26 articles on three subjects: Environmental Science; Environmental, Social and Governance; and Technology. Expert Essentials will include 400+ articles at maturity. 

Q: Can an institution subscribe to a smaller, less expensive Oxford Law Pro collection focused on a single practice area?   

A: Yes. Oxford Law Pro’s five practice-focused collections include: Arbitration, Litigation and Dispute Settlement; Competition Law; Financial, Corporate and Commercial Law; International  Law and International Organizations; and Technology, Intellectual Property and Media Law. OUP stated that Expert Essentials articles and the AI Research Assistant will be included in every Oxford Law Pro subscription.     

Q: Do title lists exist for the Oxford Law Pro practice-focused collections?  

A: Yes. Near the top of this page describing Oxford Law Pro, click: Practice Areas, then click a specific practice area (such as: International Law and International Organizations) to view titles in the practice area.   

Note: OUP offers different Oxford Law Pro content options to its “academic” and “practitioner” customers. If you download the title list for International Law and International Organizations, for example, you will see that a few textbooks (in Column A) are sold separately to academic customers. Oxford Law Pro journals are only included in “practitioner” customer subscriptions. Because the author’s institution is an “academic” customer of OUP, Brooklyn Law School Library subscribes separately to many OUP legal journals and yearbooks.   

Q: How does OUP describe Oxford Law Pro’s new AI Research Assistant? 

A: According to OUP’s scope note (see link: “i” on the top right of this page): “[A]ll responses are grounded only” in Oxford Law Pro’s “legal research content.” The AI Research Assistant’s responses will be limited to the Oxford Law Pro practice area(s) to which your institution subscribes. OUP’s scope note also states: “Everything you enter is confidential, as we will never share data entered in the tool, and the AI does no automated self-learning….” A prompt’s length is limited to 750 characters. You cannot upload a document. I asked OUP to provide an example of the AI Research Assistant stating that if it does not know an answer to a prompt, it says so. OUP replied: for a non-legal query, the response is similar to: “It looks like your query isn’t related to legal matters. I specialize in providing answers for legal research. If you have a legal question, please let me know and I’ll be happy to assist you.”  For a legal query for which there is no reliable response, the response is similar to: “I was unable to find information specifically about [topic] from the provided sources. The sources primarily discuss [related concept].  Re-phrasing your question to focus on [suggestion based on what can be reliably answered] may help.”  

Q: What type of search results does Oxford Law Pro’s AI Research Assistant yield? 

A: My test search: What is state immunity yielded a response that included detailed footnotes and a list of five sources ranked by “text similarity score.”  I liked the fact that the first footnote: cited and linked to “Immunities of the State, Its Agencies, the Head of State, and State Officials” in Satow’s Diplomatic Practice (8th ed. 2023); provided an abstract of this chapter; and included a “most relevant excerpt.” I asked an OUP representative whether the “most relevant excerpt” could, in future, include a page number. I was surprised that the “Sources” list did not include references to either The Law of State Immunity (revised and updated 3rd ed. 2015) or to Brownlie’s Principles of Public International Law (9th ed. 2019). OUP said: “The Oxford Law Pro AI Research Assistant is designed to select the most relevant sources on a topic at the point of asking. The tool is still in beta, and we welcome all feedback so that we can improve the accuracy of responses.”  

Q: Can my institution obtain a 30-day trial of Oxford Law Pro? 

A: Yes, contact your institution’s OUP sales representative through this form.   

Q: If my institution previously subscribed to: Oxford Scholarly Authorities on International Law and linked to digital titles in its catalog, will the catalog record for a treatise like Brownlie’s Principles of Public International Law (9th ed. 2019) automatically redirect to an Oxford Law Pro DOI if my institution subscribes to Oxford Law Pro collection: International Law and International Organizations? 

A: Yes. Note: 241 titles from former Oxford Scholarly Authorities on International Law are migrating to Oxford Law Pro collection: International Law and International Organizations. The new Oxford Law Pro collection will provide 253 titles. OUP is reassigning a few titles to different modules. One example: International Investment Arbitration: Substantive Principles (2nd ed. 2017) was formerly in Oxford Scholarly Authorities on International Law but will move to Oxford Law Pro’s Arbitration, Litigation, and Dispute Settlement module.  

Q: Do Oxford Law Pro collections cost more than OUP’s prior collections?  

A: Please contact your network/consortia or direct OUP sales representative for a quote.  In some cases, OUP combined two or three legacy products into one Oxford Law Pro product, and pricing for current subscribers is dependent on the amount of legacy products already subscribed to by a library. For Brooklyn Law School, the new Oxford Law Pro collection: International Law and International Organizations contains additional titles, and the subscription cost is approximately 4 percent higher than the prior cost to subscribe to OUP’s legacy product: Oxford Scholarly Authorities on International Law (OSAIL). OSAIL is the only legacy product in International Law and International Organizations. Brooklyn Law School’s OUP sales representative responded quickly to my questions regarding pricing for, and number of titles in, new Oxford Law Pro modules.    

Q: Is OUP continuing to work with NELLCO consortium so that NELLCO can offer an option to purchase these Oxford Law Pro modules?  

A: Yes, OUP continues to work with NELLCO.  Oxford Law Pro modules are available by subscription.  

Q: Does Oxford Law Pro replace all of my institution’s prior OUP subscriptions? 

A: No. For example, Oxford Law Pro does not replace OUP’s: Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law; Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law; Oxford Constitutions of the World; Oxford English Dictionary; Oxford Reference Online Premium; or Oxford Scholarship Online: Law. Also, as noted above, “academic” customers of OUP need to subscribe separately to OUP’s legal journals and yearbooks.   

OUP representatives will discuss the content and features of Oxford Law Pro at a webinar on Thursday, July 10, 2025 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time (US & Canada). Click here to register to attend this live event (which OUP also will record).   

An information site for Oxford Law Pro customers exists here.

Finally, a brief overview of Oxford Law Pro is available on YouTube.