Library guides: Law: Case law

Key resources

Australian case law
International case law

Westlaw Australia - Cases This link opens in a new window
Search the case citator and digest in Westlaw AU, containing reported and unreported judgments from all jurisdictions in Australia. Use the advanced search to find cases by keywords, citation, case name, court, judge, legislation, or words and phrases that have been judicially considered. Use KeyCite to browse cases by point of law.
CaseBase via Lexis Advance This link opens in a new window
Case citator in Lexis Advance, containing reported and unreported judgments from all jurisdictions in Australia. Use it to search for cases by keywords, citation, case name, court, judge, legislation, or words and phrases that have been judicially considered.
CCH iKnowConnect This link opens in a new window
Search individual practice areas then cases for subject-specific case reports. CCH editors compile headnotes to provide the context of the case for the specific area of law.

NSW Caselaw
The New South Wales Department of Justice repository for cases from NSW Courts and Tribunals.

AustLII : Australasian Legal Information Institute This link opens in a new window
Current and historical cases from all jurisdictions in Australia and a case citator (LawCite). AustLII is open access and contains publicly available content, including historical content which has entered the public domain.

Jade
Current and historical cases from all jurisdictions in Australia. Jade is open access and contains publicly available content, including historical content which has entered the public domain. Register for free to access annotations and alerts.

vLex Justis This link opens in a new window
Case citator for the United Kingdom, Ireland and European Union from 1163 onwards, and select case law from commonwealth countries. Use it to search for cases by keywords, citation, case name, court, judge, legislation title, or words of phrases have been judicially considered. The precedent map provides a visual representation of the treatment of cited and citing cases.
The Incorporated Council of Law Reporting : ICLR.3 This link opens in a new window
Authorised reports for the Superior and Appellate Courts of England and Wales from 1865, divided into four categories: Appeal Cases (AC),Chancery Division (Ch), Queen's Bench Division (QB) and Family (Fam).

Westlaw has three databases containing international case law: Westlaw International includes cases from Canada, the European Union, Hong Kong, Korea, United Kingdom and other jurisdictions. Westlaw China has cases in Chinese language and the English translations. Westlaw US has cases at both the state and federal levels. To search in a particular jurisdiction, choose the relevant database from the links below.
For authorised reports from the superior courts of England and Wales, use the ICLR database (see above).

Westlaw International This link opens in a new window
Westlaw US This link opens in a new window

Case citators

Case citators are searchable databases of case law that provide additional information to the case itself.

A case citator will generally include catchwords or headnotes to provide the context of the case, cases and legislation cited, and words or phrases judicially considered.

It will also provide information on citing cases and the treatment they have applied, and in some instances, journal articles which have referred to the case.

Law

Key resources

Case citators

Further support