Reading the reports of law cases and the decisions made by a court, commission, tribunal or some government departments, such as the Australian Taxation Office, helps you to understand how the law has actually been applied. This Trek will help you find information on legal cases in law reports, books and journal articles, whether you need to follow up a particular case or find cases on a specific area of law. Links Finding reports of a known case Your lecturers may give you references to important case reports or you may find them mentioned in textbooks. Raistrick, D. Index to legal citations and abbreviations. Australian Law Journal Reports Check your library catalogue by this title to find the Call Number.
Libraries treat law reports as periodicals because they are published regularly.
If you need to find a case on an area of law such as Defamation, Consumer Protection , Trade Practices or Family Law, here are some methods you can use. Find a textbook on the area of law and look at the cases it mentions. Texts refer to the most important cases. To find textbooks on an area of law in a library catalogue, choose a Keyword or Word search and use words for the topic and the country or state. These regular publications list legislation and cases by very detailed subject headings, but will often give you too many cases to choose from, so using a recent textbook is best.