Legal Research Skills

If you are searching a full-text case law source, it is strongly recommended to use Proximity Operators to link the key terms together and improve relevance.

For more focused results, consider searching a Case citator. Remember, case citators contain information about a case, including catchwords, but do not contain full-text case law.

Subscription databases

Free databases

You can search full-text case law in Lexis Advance, or for a more focused search, limit your search to the case citator, CaseBase. 

1. Click Advanced Search above the main search box > select AU Cases
2. Type your keywords into the search boxes
3. To refine your results, type additional keywords into the Search Within Results box on the left-hand side, or choose from the Filters on the left-hand side.

1. Under Content types, click All Cases
2. Click Advanced next to the main search box
3. Type your keywords into the search boxes
4. To refine your results, type additional keywords into the Search within results box or choose from the Filters on the left hand side

OR alternatively, browse cases by topic area using the Westlaw classification system Key Numbers

1. From the homepage click Key Numbers
2. Browse the topic areas OR type a keyword in the Title Search box at the top-right
3. When you have found the relevant Key Number, tick the box/es next to the heading and click View Cases
4. To refine your results, type additional keywords into the Search within results box

1. Type your search terms into the top search bar
2. On the results page, expand the Filters panel on the left-hand side, then under Content Type, limit to Cases

OR alternatively, search within a specific practice area

1. Expand the navigation panel on the left-hand side
2. Expand the relevant practice area > then click Cases
3. Type your keywords in the subject-specific Search box that appears in the right-hand panel

1. Click the drop-down arrow to the left of the main search bar > select Advanced Search
2. Click Boolean Query and search using keywords and search operators
3. Next to the Select the database(s) to search... heading, click Show all (to display all databases in the list)
4. Tick the box to search the relevant case law database, e.g. New South Wales: All Cases

1. Click the arrow next to search now and select Advanced search
2. Type in your keywords and choose additional parameters as required (e.g. Collection)
3. To refine your results, type additional keywords into the Search within results box on the left-hand side

OR alternatively, to browse cases by topic:

1. Click the Jade Browser tab
2. Click By topic under the Judgments heading of the Browse collections menu on the left-hand side
3. Select a topic from the list
4. To refine your results, type additional keywords into the Search within results box on the left-hand side