Cases

A Case Citator is an essential tool for effective case research and is used extensively in legal practice. Case Citators will give a summary of the important elements of a case including judicial consideration of your case, and judicial consideration of legislation. 

CaseBase (from LexisNexis) and Westlaw are the main Australian case citators with access to the full text of authorised Australian cases. It is advisable to check both databases for your case research to ensure comprehensive and reliable results.

If you know the report series you need but not the platform it is found on, you can use our Online Case Reports list to find the direct link.

Note that both include information about most Australian cases, but only one platform holds the authorised report series. When citing cases you need to cite to the authorised report series if at all possible (see AGLC rule 2.2.2). The authorised versions are found in either Lexis Casebase or Westlaw as noted below.

Rule 2 of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation ('AGLC') covers how to cite cases.

This database contains the full text authorised cases for:
•    QdR - Supreme Court of Queensland - Queensland Reports
•    NSWLR -Supreme Court of NSW - New South Wales Law Reports
•    VR - Supreme Court of Victoria  - Victorian Reports

This database contains full text authorised cases for:
•    ACTLR - Supreme Court of Australian Capital Territory - Australian Capital Territory Law Reports
•    CLR - High Court - Commonwealth law Reports
•    FCR - Federal Court - Federal Court Reports
•    NSWLR - Supreme Court of NSW - New South Wales Law Reports
•    QdR - Supreme Court of Queensland - Queensland Reports
•    NTLR - Supreme Court of Northern Territory Supreme Court - Northern Territory Law Reports
•    SASR - Supreme Court of South Australia - South Australia State Reports
•    Tas R - Supreme Court of Tasmania - Tasmanian Reports
•    VR - Supreme Court of Victoria - Victorian Reports
•    WAR - Supreme Court of Western Australia - Western Australia Reports

LawCite and JADE are free case citators. They have advantages but it is important to remember that they don’t offer access to authorised versions of the cases.

Both BarNet JADE (above) and Austlii (link below) provide access to the text of a wide range of Australian cases. While these are not the authorised versions, these sources can be important when you do not have access to subscription databases, such as when you are on placement or after graduation.