Law

CaseBase is a case citator provided by LexisNexis. CaseBase searches across all material held in the Lexis Advance database to provide you with an index of cases.

The range of information provided by CaseBase includes:

• Cases referring to this case
• Journal articles referring to this case
• Cases considered by this case
• Legislation considered by this case
• Catchwords & Digest

Worked example for citations:

In the Citation box type 1998 hca 22 > confirm that the party name/s and other information you have matches the result.

Tip: To learn how to enter citations correctly select Citation Help

Note: We had the unreported citation for this case and could easily find a full-text version of the case in AustLII. However, by searching in CaseBase we have discovered that the case has been reported in the authorised series - the Commonwealth Law Reports (available through FirstPoint). There is also a link to the ALR (Australian Law Reports) version, which is published by LexisNexis AU.

Worked example for party name:

In the Case Name search box type accc and knight > 1 result - verify other details to make sure it is the correct case

Worked example for searching by topic:

In the Catchwords/Summary search box type unfair dismissal and discrimination > View results > Select a case name to view the digest - your keywords will be highlighted.

FirstPoint is a case citator provided by Thomson Reuters Westlaw.  FirstPoint searches across all material in the Westlaw database to provide you an index of cases and provides material related to that case.  The range of information provided includes:

• Digest (including hyperlinked subject headings)
• Litigation history
• Cases cited
• Legislation judicially considered
• Noted in journals
• Party names

Worked example for citations:

In the Citation search box and type 194 fcr 285 > confirm that the party name/s match the information you have, then select the case title to view the information about case.

Tip: To learn how to enter citations correctly select the information symbol to display search tips

Select the PDF link next to the citation to link to a full-text copy of the case.

Note: There are multiple citations for this case as it has been reported in more than one law report series. However, not all the citations are hyperlinked - this means that the law report is provided by a different publisher.  For example, ALR - the Australian Law Reports - are published by LexisNexis AU, not Thomson Reuters.

Worked example for party names:

In the Case title/Party name search box type accc and knight > no results

Note: This may be an example when you need to try the full name, not the abbreviation

Select title, and in the search box type australian competition and consumer commission and knight > 1 result - select the case name to view the digest

Tip: The moral of the story is: Don't give up on your first try - sometimes it is necessary to try multiple searches and multiple databases to find the case you need.

Worked example for a topic search:

In the Free text search box type "burden of proof" and murder > View results

Note: The hyperlinked classification headings are assigned by editors who have read the case and are an easy way of finding other cases on your topic.

Select the Burden of Proof link from the chain Criminal law > Particular offences > Offences against the person > Homicide > Murder > Evidence > Burden of proof. This provides a list of other cases that have been assigned the same particular subject heading.

Jade provides access to Australian cases and tribunal decisions.  

Jade allows you to search by date, keywords, topic, legislation section or court and provides functionality for sharing results, creating alerts and saving searches.  All decisions are available in full-text and each one also has a citator report at the end of the decision. The range of information provided includes:

• Cases citing the decision
• Cases cited by the decision
• Legislation considered by the decision

LawCite is a citator provided by Austlii, a collaboration project from the Free Access to Law Movement. It is an automatically generated international legal case and journal article citator and as such search results are gathered from Austlii's collection and the wider collections available through Worldlii.  Information provided by LawCite includes:

• Cases referred to by the case
• Cases citing the case
• Legislation considered by the case
• Articles that cite the case

LawOne allows you to quickly locate cases based on judicial consideration of legislation.  In other words, use LawOne when you want to locate cases that discuss a known section of legislation. 

IntelliConnect, published by CCH, allows you to access cases published in specialist reports.  These are subject related and collated under topic libraries.  Some (but not all) of the subject areas available include:

• Corporate governance, company and securities laws
• Taxation, bankruptcy and insolvency laws
• Employment, discrimination, family law, personal injury, medical and sports law

The general search field at the top of the homepage allows you to search broadly after you have ticked the relevant libraries you wish to search.  Then you narrow your results using the drop-down menu under Search/Browse:. 

The easiest way to find a case is by its citation - this is a unique identifier for the case. Sometimes, cases will have more than one citation, if they have been reported in different law report series.​

Databases that allow easy citation searching include FirstPoint, CaseBase, CCH Intelliconnect, Jade, LawCite.  Use the links below to access these databases.

Databases that allow easy party name searching include FirstPoint, CaseBase, CCH Intelliconnect, Jade, LawCite.  Use the links below to access these databases.

Party names aren't necessarily surnames, here are some other examples of party names:

Ex parte - meaning with only one side present

R - meaning Regina or Rex (depending on the reigning monarch) and is used in its abbreviated form in case reports to indicate the Crown in criminal prosecutions

In re - usually indicates that there is only one party

Having trouble?

Often, the only information you have about a case is one or both of the party names. There are a few tips when searching by party name:

• Omit articles such as 'a', 'the' in names as well as terms such as 'Pty Ltd' in a company name
• Beware of abbreviations - sometimes the case will be listed under the abbreviation, other times you will need to search for the full name
• Beware of names with difficult or unusual spelling - always double-check spelling
• Generally you should omit the 'v' if searching for a full case name - check the database help section to find out the correct way to enter the names
• Party names are not unique, so it is important to verify that the case is the correct one by checking other details such as date, judge, court, topic etc.

When you do not know the citation of a case but know the case by its popular name, for example, theTasmanian Dam case, you can obtain the citation details from the case citators, eg. CaseBase, Firstpoint, Jade, LawCite, or try the Australian Law Dictionary.

In the search box type your case name to find more details of the case, including its official citation.

Often you are trying to find cases in a subject area, rather than a specific case. Using the free-text search box in a database such as Casebase, Firstpoint, CCH, or Jade provides great results, some of which will also indicate additional materials like commentary about the case, links to articles, dictionary and encyclopaedia entries (in the case of FirstPoint and Casebase).

Legislation judicially considered means that a piece of legislation, or part thereof, has been considered in case law - ie. by the judiciary.

Most legal research databases have a function for searching for legislation judicially considered.  In this place you can type the Statute or Regulation name along with the section, part or rule number.

Take a look in the databases below for quick and simple ways to search for legislation judicially considered.