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These are the lecture slides of Fundamentals of Law. Key important points are: Legal Research, Primary Sources, Sources of Law, Primary Sources, Secondary Sources, Statutory Research, Case Law Research, Commonwealth Law Reports, Internet Research Tools, Legal Citation
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Legal research usually starts with secondary and other sources , which are used as a guide to identifying the primary sources
Primary sources
Secondary sources
Case law is published in authorised reports
Each court has its own law report series, e.g. the High Court has the Commonwealth Law Reports (CLR)
Various publishers also publish law report series dedicated to particular areas of law, e.g. the Australian Torts Reporter (ATR)
Consult textbooks or the Internet for relevant case law
Internet research tools, e.g.
http://www.austlii.edu.au http://www.findlaw.com.au
The Act may be divided into Parts and Divisions
The operative provisions are sections , sub-sections , paragraphs and sub-paragraphs Amendments may result in section numbers like s160A … or s159GZZZZE [a section of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth)]
Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)
name of the statute ( in italics )
date the statute was passed by parliament or last consolidated
name of the parliament
In a State court, Smith is the plaintiff , Jones is the defendant In a Federal court, Smith is the applicant , Jones is the respondent
On appeal, Smith is the appellant , Jones is the respondent The ‘v’ is read as ‘and’ ‘Smith & Ors’ or ‘Smith et al ’ means that Smith is the first of a number of plaintiffs
Smith v Jones
The date is the year of trial The letters are the abbreviation for the law report series The number after the round brackets is the volume number of the law report series Square brackets around the date indicate that the law report series volumes are by year The final numbers are page numbers
Mabo v Queensland (1992) 175 CLR 1 Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562