Legal research

Alerting services

You can be informed about changes to legislation or new judgments by registering (free) with these databases:

The Federal Register of Legislation   

(Previously known as ComLaw) The Federal Register of Legislation (the Legislation Register) is the authorised whole-of-government website for Commonwealth legislation and related documents. It is managed by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. It contains the full text and details of the lifecycle of individual laws and the relationships between them.

Lexis+   

Choose the Cases tab and choose Latest Cases Notifier (left column) then register and nominate an area of law to be emailed the latest unreported judgments.

WestLaw AU   

Jade   

Judgments And Decisions Enhanced. A free resource which keeps you up to date with the latest decisions of Australian and International Courts and Tribunals. Jade provides a sophisticated citator and allows you to see how specific paragraphs of a case have been subsequently considered. Australian legislation is also included.

Jade offers a paid subscription service to Jade Professional which provides you with advanced legal research tools such as visualisations of case law and legislation, email alerts, document checking to confirm and analyse your citations, and the ability to share and collaborate online. Curtin law students are eligible for a free subscription to Jade Professional. Using your Curtin email account simply email help@jade.io to request this. If you have any problems please email the Faculty Librarian, Law on LibraryResearchSupport@curtin.edu.au.

Parliamentary Counsel’s Office   

The Parliamentary Counsel’s Office is the official publisher of Western Australian legislation and statutory information.

Keeping up with current affairs

Lawyers Weekly   

Legal news, jobs, features (by state) videos and more.

West Australian (newspaper)   

Search on keywords or browse through issue dates from 2005 onwards.

Factiva   

Factiva is a full text database of Australian and international newspaper articles.

TVNews (Informit)   

The TVNews database holds videos and transcripts of news items and selected documentaries from Australian free-to-air, public and commercial TV stations. Items are updated daily. Downloading videos from TVNews does not affect your internet quota and programmes may be saved.

Opinions on High - High Court Blog

Opinions on High is a blog produced by the Melbourne Law School. It provides commentary on and analysis of recent decisions made by Australia’s High Court as well as offering a public forum for discussion on these decisions. An RSS feed is also available.

High Court of Australia online videos

With the aim of improving access to its hearings for the public, the High Court is now publishing on its website audio-visual recordings of Full Court hearings heard in Canberra.

Radio National’s Law Report

View the weekly Law Report. An RSS feed is also available.

Just Cases (Monash Law School)

This podcast from Monash Law School takes you behind the judgments and tells the back story to some of the biggest legal cases that impact on our daily lives you’ve never heard of. An RSS feed is also available.

Foolkit

Foolkit: the free legal toolkit contains information and resources for lawyers in Australia as well as free information and answers for the public. There are pages for law students available as well under the ‘My Career’ tab. You can filter to Western Australia for specific content.

The State Library of NSW offers a ‘Legal Answers’. Although providing information about the law in NSW it will help build your knowledge about the laws of Australia. Members of the public can search or browse areas of law, view an online toolkit, look at legal research guides and link to legal advice groups and professionals.

Law apps

Load the apps to access and search these databases from your mobile device.

WestLaw App

AustLII app (iPhone, iPod, iPad)   

Browse or search legislation and cases with this free app.

AustLII’s Android app

Constitution of Australia   

Provides the text of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (the Constitution) with links to case law references on AustLII.