14 Using Case Citators

The main role of a case citator is to provide extra information about cases. In Australian legal databases, any judgment of a superior court will have a citator record that includes information about the:

  • status of the case
  • publication and citation details
  • litigation history — whether the case has gone on appeal and been subsequently affirmed or reversed
  • subsequent judicial treatment — how later judges have treated the decision
  • consideration of earlier cases
  • secondary sources that cite the case
  • legislation considered by the case.

Always check case citators to understand the case.

The main case citators used in Australian legal research are:

  • CaseBase (Lexis Advance/Lexis+)
  • KeyCite (Westlaw Australia)
  • LawCite (AustLII)

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Legal Research Skills: An Australian Law Guide: 2024 JCU Edition Copyright © 2024 by James Cook University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.