Law Librarian's Blog

Older Unreported Judgments

2008-04-30T09:20:00.003+10:00

Question:
How does one access "unreported cases", for example the case of Thuat The Nguyen v Elliott (unreported 6 Feb 1995, Hedigan J Vic Supreme Court).
The Austlii website doesn't seem to have any avenue for unreported cases.

Answer:
The Online Case Law page has a list of places that you can go to get unreported judgments. AustLII is a comprehensive site for unreported judgements but some of the older decisions are not availabel there. LexisNexis AU is one source, and another source is the Victorian Supreme Court website. If you have checked AustLII and the case is not there then check LexiusNexis AU and the Victorian Supreme Court catalogue. It is available in both places.

Mac users and legal databases

2008-04-29T08:57:00.002+10:00

Question: I am having trouble with a journal. I click on the Family, Society and Law website, I log in to the Australian Journal of Family Law, I click on an article and it tells me I have not connected. This has never happened before to me using this website. I am using a mac.

Answer: If you are a mac user, you should use Firefox as your browser, rather than Internet Explorer. This should solve the problem.

HeinOnline: The Video

2008-04-22T16:44:00.001+10:00

Hein Online have placed some training videos on YouTube. Well worth a loook!

http://www.youtube.com/HeinOnline08

Australian Guide to Legal Citation

2008-04-02T12:04:00.003+11:00

Question:

How do I cite a journal article when there is no volume number and the journal is issued monthly?

Answer:

According to the editors of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation this is an example of how to do it.

Gopal Sri Ram, 'The Role of Judges and Lawyers in Evolving a Human Rights Jurisprudence' (January 2003) Infoline: The Official Newsletter of the Malaysian Bar 17.

However, where a volume and/or issue number is present, this approach should not be adopted.

Market Reports: Which are the "top tier" law firms?

2007-12-19T14:34:00.000+11:00

Question:

Do we get a report called the "IBIS World Research Report: Legal services In Australia"?

Answer:

We do not have access to the IBIS report but we do have access to the competitor product. Go to the Library Databases section and then go to GMID. There is a comprehensive market report there on Legal services in Australia. This should meet your needs.

Extract:

Legal services in Australia
1 Oct 2004
LEGAL SERVICES: MARKET SIZE
The Australian market for legal services in 2003 was worth A$10.6 billion (US$6.9 million), an increase of over 11.6% from the previous year.

Google Scholar @ La Trobe University

2007-12-19T11:58:00.000+11:00

Google Scholar is at http://scholar.google.com.
You can now configure Google Scholar so that it will tell you if we have access to the journal articles that you have found, in one of the many collections of online journals that we have access to. For off-campus access, you need to set the preferences once only.
This is what you need to do...
Go to Google Scholar and click Scholar Preferences.
In the Library Links search box search for la trobe.
Tick the checkbox for the option La Trobe University Library (Full text @ La Trobe)
Click Save Preferences

Journal Abbreviations

2007-11-20T09:09:00.000+11:00

Question:
I’m just doing researching about unfair dismissal for the ....essay and I’ve found a journal cited in CaseBase but I can’t seem to find the full journal article. I can’t even seem to figure out which journal the articles is featured in!

The article is called

Byond Unfair Dismissal - Employees Find Sucess in Other Forms of Legal Redress
(2006) 9(10) IHC 113
Author(s): by Naomi Gingold and Nick Ruskin

Do you have any idea where I might be able to find this article? I can’t seem to figure out which journal IHC is an abbreviation for!

I’ve spent the last hour looking for it but I can’t seem to find it anywhere!!!

Answer:

CaseBase uses abbreviations for law reports and journals. There are a few places that you can check to find out what an abbreviation stands for. You can locate a database of abbreviations here:

Library -> Subject Guides -> Law -> Legal Abbreviations

Checking this list will tell you that IHC stands for InHouse Counsel. Unfortunately this is a journal that we do not subscribe to. You can do a search of Victorian Libraries to determine which university libraries have it, or you could check the Law Institute Library catalogue.

Australian Guide to Legal Citation

2007-08-31T11:37:00.000+10:00

The Question
Would you happen to know the volume number for this citation:
Burrows, 'Reforming Privity of Contract: Law Commission Report No.242 [1996], Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quaterly 467, 468-71.
The Answer
The Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC) usually requires a volume number but not all journals have volume numbers - for some journals the year of publication is the volume number. If this happens use square brackets around the year.
Examples:
Charles Mitchell, ‘Tracing Trust Funds into Insurance Proceeds’ [1997] Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly 465.

William Swadling, ‘A Claim in Restitution?’ [1996] Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly 63.

Parallel Citations

2007-08-28T14:16:00.000+10:00

The Problem
The case I'm reading is Garcia v National Australia Bank Limited (1998) 194 CLR 395. This was a High Court case. With some of the extra material I am reading, another citation is sometimes given as 155 ALR 614. Is it the same case?
The Answer
By checking in Casebase or FirstPoint you can discover where a case was reported. In this example, the case appears in the following places: 194 CLR 395, 72 ALJR 1243, 155 ALR 614, 23 Fam LR 575, [1998] NSW ConvR 56,675 (55-853), [1998] Q ConvR 60,142 (54-514), [1998] V ConvR 67,050 (54-590), [1999] ASAL 57,481 (55-018), [1998] HCA 48.

The Commonwealth Law Reports are the "authorised" reports for the High Court of Australia, so you should always use this version. But journal articles written before the CLR version appeared would cite one of the other versions.

Do you prefer to do things by trial and error?

2007-08-20T12:15:00.000+10:00

It seems most of us prefer to muddle through, and do things by trial and error rather than asking for help. At least that is the pattern that emerges when we ask people how they use library databases and library websites.

And we leave things to the last minute, so we need help NOW! We can't always wait for assistance.

As the law librarian I'm always trying to think of ways to overcome these entrenched behaviours!

Please ask for help (rather than muddling through), and don't leaves things to the last minute. I don't work 24/7 (do you?) so you need to leave time to ask the question and get a reply. The easiest way to contact me (or any of the other subject librarians) is via email (d.warren@latrobe.edu.au).

Hein Online and English Reports

2007-06-05T15:17:00.000+10:00

The English Reports via Hein Online contains the full text of British cases published between 1220 and 1865. It is the electronic equivalent the English Reports, a 178 volume set of law reports that date from the days when reports were known by the name of the reporter. It is a reprint of hundreds of nominate reports, case reporters of specific courts referred to by their creators name. Each case in the English Reports has two cites, an E.R. cite and a nominate report cite.

Search for ER cases:
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Index?collection=engrep&set_as_cursor=clear

From Lawyers Weekly

2007-05-30T09:18:00.000+10:00

Idealism and professionalism go hand in hand

DANNY GILBERT, of Gilbert + Tobin has urged law students to use their abilities, not just for their own benefit, but for the benefit of the community, the nation and humanity. Gilbert told graduating law students at UNSW that “altruism, a commitment to the service of others, a commitment to critical dialogue and advocacy and a commitment to the strengthening of civil society will enlarge and transform you, both personally and professionally”. He said that lawyers in firms can and should do more for the community, by supporting legal centres, participating in discussions about public law and human rights and supporting universities that undertake work on these issues, doing pro bono work and standing up for the rule of law.

For the full article:
http://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/articles/29/0C04CB29.asp

Why don't the links in CaseBase work?

2007-05-25T09:04:00.000+10:00

If you click on the links in CaseBase you will sometimes get a message that says "This content is not available on your subscription. Please contact customer service for more information."

This is because we do not subscribe to the English cases via the LexisNexis platform, so links to the All England Reports, Appeal Cases etc don't work. But it is possible to get online access to these case via the Lexis.com platform.

To get online access to English cases follow these steps:

1. Go to the Subject Resources link on the library home page.
2. Go to Subject Resources for Law
3. Click on the link to Online Case Law.
4. Scroll down the list until you come to the law reports series you want.
5. Click on the link.
6. Enter the name of the case or the cite.

If you enter the name of the case, use the following format:
name(Arsenal Football Club and Reed)

If you enter the citation for the case, use the following format:
cite(2003 Ch 454)

Example: