Accessing Australian Law Reports
Conducting a search
Limiting a search
Search strategies
Viewing search results
Tagging, Saving, Printing and E-Mailing records
Search Help

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The Australian Law Reports (ALR) database is the online version of the law report series ‘Australian Law Reports. It reports decisions of the High Court of Australia, and significant decisions of the Federal and Supreme Courts. It also incorporates the Northern Territory Reports and the authorised Australian Capital Territory Reports.

Accessing Australian Law Reports

From the Library’s Homepage at http://www.utas.edu.au/library

• Click on Databases in the right-hand “Quick Links” menu.
• Click on the letter A.
• Select Australian Law Reports from the list of Databases.
• Enter your email account name & password if prompted.

Conducting a search

Australian Law Reports offers you many different ways to search for a case. These are outlined below.

Search Terms - enter your key words using connectors to show the relationship between the terms. Click Connectors Help for more information on constructing a search. Search Terms searches across all fields in the judgment record.

Case Name  - Locate a case by one or more party names. For example, to find Smith v Jones, type smith AND jones.

Citation – Search for your case using the ALR case citation. Note that it is not necessary to use capital letters, or to type brackets around the year, but you must put a space between each of the elements in the citation. For example, to find (2001) 181 ALR 263, type 2001 181 alr 263

Catchwords/Summary  - Search for cases on a particular topic or area of law by finding these words in the catchwords, headnote or summary of a judgment of the ALR case record. 

Judge/Representation - Search for decisions handed down by a particular judge, for example Justice Kirby, or cases where a specific barrister, solicitor or firm acted, for example, attorney general. You can also use this search in conjunction with other fields to limit a search.

References to Legislation  - Find cases dealing with specific legislation. Enter words from the title and/or section number, for example, trade practices and 52. You can also add the abbreviation for the jurisdiction to distinguish the legislation, for example, if searching for the Tasmanian Criminal Code rather than the Queensland Criminal Code, enter criminal code and tas and [section number].

References to Cases – Find references to a particular case, for example, Wakim; gould and brown.

Limiting a search

Jurisdiction/Court – Limit your search to judgments from a particular jurisdiction or court. Selecting a jurisdiction will automatically reveal the courts available for selection in that jurisdiction.

Judgment Date – Limit your search by date. Either choose from the pre-set options of the previous week, month, groups of months, year, or groups of years, or enter your own date restrictions.           

Document Sections – Limit your search to any section of an ALR judgment. Click on +Show and use the drop-down Search Within list to choose the part of the judgment you wish to search. Enter your search terms in the Using terms box, and then click Add to search using the search string you created.

Search Strategies

Wildcard Symbols – Expand your search by using wildcards to search on multiple word options:

Connectors - Conduct a search string using connectors to show the relationship between the terms. Common connectors used in the Australian Law Reports are:

Use the Connectors Help and Help links to find more information about searching using connectors and wildcards.

Viewing search results

If your search produces only one hit, then the full judgment will open on screen. If your search produces multiple results, then a hit list will be displayed:

You can alter the way you view the hit list:

• View allows you to change the display of your hit list, to see either the citation list only, the citation with catchwords, or the expanded list.
• Sort allows you to view your hit list in order by Reverse Chronological date, Jurisdiction/Court, or Relevance.

You can find additional information about the case from the full judgment display:

• View citator document will open the CaseBase case citator record for the case, if one is available
• Select related content allows you to find related cases – cases that have judicially considered your original case.

You can alter your search results from the hit list and full judgment screens:

• Edit Search and New Search allow you to return to the search screen to alter your search.
• Narrow your search here allows you to enter additional terms and add them to your original search, to narrow your search.

Tagging, Saving, Printing and E-Mailing Records

You can select or “tag” documents in your results for printing, emailing, downloading or viewing.

• To tag a document, click on the checkbox next to the document title.
• To tag all documents on a particular page of a results list, click the checkbox on the far left of the red bar above the results.

Click on the Print, Save or Email icons:

A separate Deliver Documents window will open up - follow the prompts to deliver the document:

• Select the Document View you want – select Full for the complete case
• Select the Document Range – to print all cases, the case you are currently viewing, or only the tagged or selected documents
• Select the format and other details relevant to your particular delivery method.

Search Help

The Australian Law Report database includes various options for getting online help:

• There is a general Help link in the top right-hand corner of the search window.
• Help links for particular types of searches are located next to the search box, for example, Connectors Help and Citation Help.
• There are specific Help topics listed in the Related Links box on the search screen, under the heading How Do I?

LexisNexis AU provides an online tutorial, located as a link called View a tutorial.