The mission of the institute is to be "the focal point of legal research for the United Kingdom and the countries of the British Commonwealth.

"[1] Since 1976, the institute's home has been Charles Clore House, located in the heart of Bloomsbury, at 17 Russell Square.

17 Russell Square, part of the newly built Charles Clore House designed by Sir Denys Lasdun.

underway, the first phase of which was completed in September 2012, incorporating a larger café and improved lecture facilities on the ground floor.

The IALS library holds a collection of over 300,000 legal texts, complemented by over 3,000 current serial titles, reports, and legislative materials.

[5] It has been described as the "jewel in the Institute’s crown",[6] and is a repository library for legal texts published in the United Kingdom.

[citation needed] Since the late 1990s, IALS has participated in collaborative and standalone digital projects resulting in a number of searchable databases publicly available via the website.

Ongoing collaborations with the British Library and BAILII have led to increased web presence for legal research, with IALS hosting BAILII and supporting its role in providing free access to full text British and Irish legal materials.

Areas of research conducted by the institute include legislative drafting, human rights, international financial regulation, and transnational taxation law.

in Drafting Legislation, Regulation, and Policy, which the institute claims is "prized by governments around the world as the flagship degree in the subject," trains lawyers from across the common law world in the art of statutory drafting, law reform, and the legislative process.

A partnership with the Beijing Arbitration Commission, established in 2012, seeks to promote the study of alternative dispute resolution, and deepen Sino-British legal relationships.