Useful resources for legal research
Legal research skills are essential for law students and graduates. Here
you will find listed the key resources, and below them are videos that will help to get you started.
Case law & legislation
Lexis Advance Pacific Australian legal materials including key Australian Law reports and unreported judgments. Includes the Practical Guidance database. Lexis Advance has replaced LexisNexis AU. LexisNexis AU will be removed from Swinburne library catalogue in December 2017.
Westlaw AU Provides access to a collection of Australian legal materials, most of the authorised reports including Commonwealth Law Reports (CLR), journals, legislation and commentary. Includes the case citator Firstpoint and Laws of Australia. In “settings” you can choose your landing page to be either Research or Practical Guidance.
CCH IntelliConnect A range of Australian legal publications and resources covering taxation, industrial law, corporations law, trade practices and consumer law, and human resource management.
ICLR Online Website of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales (ICLR), established in 1865. The ICLR publishes Law Reports of Judicial Decisions of the Superior and Appellate Courts in England.
Hein Online Full-text legal journals and other legal documents predominantly US, also includes major international publications and some Australia Law reviews. Also includes English Reports.
Westlaw Full text database of legal information for non-Australian jurisdictions. Provides access to legislation, cases and journal articles from the US and other jurisdictions, including Europe, UK, Canada, Hong Kong and NZ.
Legislation
LawOne from TimeBase
Access to full text legislation across all nine jurisdictions, including amending, subordinate and repealed legislation, Bills, Explanatory Memoranda and Second Reading Speeches along with detailed legislative histories.
Federal Register of Legislation (formerly ComLaw)
The Federal Register of Legislation (the Legislation Register) is the authorised whole-of-government website for Commonwealth legislation and related documents.
Parliament of Australia Library website includes ParlInfo
AustLII
The Australian Legal Information Institute publishes acts, regulations and cases for the Commonwealth and Australian states and territories. Also WorldLII.
Encyclopaedias
The Laws of Australia (Westlaw AU)
Another legal encyclopaedia with chapters on all the major areas of Australian law. Each chapter covers major case law and legislation related to that specific area.
Legal journals
AGIS Plus Text
This database provides full text articles to many Australian, New Zealand and Pacific law journals and selected articles from major US, UK and Canadian law journals. Covers all aspects of law.
CINCH
Australian Criminology Database indexes and abstracts articles on all aspects of crime and criminal justice including corrections, crime, crime prevention, criminal law, criminology, juvenile justice, law enforcement, police and victims of crime.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts, in EBSCOhost
Covering law enforcement and criminal justice, mostly US content.
Criminal justice (Gale)
Full text database covering all aspects of criminal justice in the United States.
Criminal justice (ProQuest)
Full text database. Subject coverage: criminal law, crime and its causes, legal and social implications of crime, litigation, crime trends and law enforcement.