Due to scheduled maintenance, the National Library’s online services will be unavailable between 8pm on Saturday 7 December and 11am on Sunday 8 December (AEDT). Find out more.
Not sure where to start?
Below is a selection of both subscription and free online resources which can be used for finding the full text of law reports, reported cases, and published and unreported judgements.
Westlaw AU
Westlaw AU is an online database available from within the National Library building only. You can access Westlaw from within the Library building by visiting our eResources portal and searching for the database under the "browse eResources" tab.
Westlaw AU contains the FirstPoint Case Digest and Citator service, covering Australian reported cases since 1825 and unreported judgements from September 1999. Information is sourced from the Australian Case Citator, Australian Digest and Australian Legal Monthly Digest.
Westlaw AU can be used to research the litigation history of a particular case, read summaries of key cases or research a particular area of law. It also features authorised law reports including Commonwealth Law Reports and Federal Court Reports.
AustLII
AustLII is a free website which includes the full text of law reports and unreported judgments from many of the major Australian courts. Also included is LawCite which indexes cases and journal articles from around the world. If you find a citation to a case of interest, you may be able to find a report on that case in the Library's collection of printed law reports.
Court websites
All Australian jurisdictions provide recently published judgments for higher courts on their relevant website. The Australian Government Attorney-General's department - Courts webpage lists links to all Federal Courts and all State and Territory Supreme Courts.
NZLII
NZLII contains New Zealand legal information, including case law, legislation, and law journals.
BaiLII
BAILII databases contain British and Irish case law, legislation and other materials (e.g. Law Commission Reports), and European case law.
WorldLII
WorldLII databases contain case law, legislation and other materials for countries across the world. Select a country and then cases.