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Understanding legal citations

Legal citations provide the information needed to identify and locate legal materials such as cases, legislation, and journal articles.

Understanding citations will help you:

  • Find the correct source quickly
  • Recognise important legal authorities
  • Correctly cite materials in your assignments and research

Discover the key parts of a case citation, how to read them, and the different types of citations you may encounter.

Parts of a citation

Legal citations typically include:

  • Party names (for cases)
  • Year of decision or publication
  • Volume number
  • Law report or journal abbreviation
  • Page number or pinpoint reference

Example: Mabo v Queensland (No2) (1992) 175 CLR 1

Mabo v Queensland (No 2)
↓
Case name
(1992)
↓
Year of judgment
175
↓
Volume number
CLR
↓
Law report series
1
↓
Starting page

Legal abbreviations

Legal citations often use abbreviated names of law report series (e.g. CLR, FCR, ALJR). These abbreviations help keep citations concise but can be confusing if you're unfamiliar with them.

Use one of the abbreviation tools below to help you decode citations:

Types of case citations

Legal cases can be cited in several ways, depending on how and were the decision was published.

Medium neutral citations (MNC)

  • Assigned to unreported cases and are independent of any publisher or report series.

  • Introduced in the late 1990s to standardise citations for judgments available online.
  • Include paragraph numbers to allow precise referencing.
  • Year of the decision appears in square brackets [ ].

  • Example: SL6 Limited v Fat Duck Pty Ltd [2012] FCA 71

    SL6 Limited v Fat Duck Pty Ltd
    ↓
    Case name
    [2012]
    ↓
    Year of decision
    FCA
    ↓
    Federal Court of Australia
    71
    ↓
    Judgment number for that year

Reported citations

  • Reported citations appear in law report series. They may be authorised or unauthorised reports.

  • For more information, go to Law reports.

  • Example: Commonwealth v Tasmania (1983) 158 CLR 1

    Commonwealth v Tasmania
    ↓
    Case name
    (1983)
    ↓
    Year of judgment
    158
    ↓
    Volume number
    CLR
    ↓
    Law report series
    1
    ↓
    Starting page

Unreported citations

  • Cases not published in a report series.

  • Cited using medium neutral citation (MNC) or a court file number.

Parallel citations

  • A case may be published in more than one report series.

  • Both citations are valid, but an authorised version is preferred.
  • Example: Commonwealth v Tasmania (1983) 158 CLR 1; (1983) 46 ALR 625

    • CLR → Commonwealth law reports     ALR → Australian law reports

Decoding legal citations

Example Citation: Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1

  1. Identify the case name and year
    • ​​​​​It helps to locate the case in databases. Here it's: Mabo v Queensland (no 2) (1992).
  2. Find the abbreviation
    • Look for the short code in the citation. Here it’s: CLR.
  3. Use an abbreviation tool
  4. Determine how the case is cited
    • MNC, reported or unreported format? 
    • Use Library collection to find the report series (e.g. Westlaw AU, Lexis+, or AustLII).
  5. Decode the full citation:
    • Mabo v Queensland (No 2) = case name
    • (1992) = year of the decision
    • 175 = volume number
    • CLR = report series (Commonwealth Law Reports)
    • 1 = starting page of the case

Tips:

This same process works for journal and legislation citations. Once you know what the abbreviations mean, the rest will follow more easily.

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