Legal research: Free Law
Free Law on the Internet
Primary legal materials including legislation and judicial decisions, as well as many useful secondary sources of law, are published on the internet. Legal practitioners and students of law, will find these free resources extremely useful for legal research.
These free legal materials should be used with caution by legal practitioners, as most are not recognised as legal authorities. Legal practitioners should always Google with caution and only use the results as a guide, as internet sources may not lead to sound legal authorities. Legal authorities are not usually free on the web. Most are subscription services provided at considerable cost by reputable law publishers, like LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters.
Consult a Student Learning Librarian if you need guidance.
Cases & Courts
- WAIRC DecisionsWestern Australian Industrial Relations Commission
- Warden's Court DecisionsThe Warden’s Court is constituted under the Mining Act 1978 (WA) and its jurisdiction extends throughout Western Australia
- AustLII (Australian Legal Information Institute)Unreported judgments for Australian courts including High Court of Australia, Family Court of Australia and Federal Court of Australia
- Jade BarnetFree Database that can be used look for Australian cases and Legislation. All law students are eligible for free Jade Professional accounts for the duration of their law studies!
Law Reform
Treaties & International Courts
- Australian Treaty SeriesIncludes all Australian Treaties since 1901
- International Court of JusticeIncludes judgments and documents such as the Charter of the United Nations, Statute and rules of the court.
Legislation
- Federal Register of LegislationCommonwealth legislation
- LegifyLegify is a free, quick search tool that links directly to authoritative Legislation, as published on the official publishers' websites for State and Commonwealth Jurisdictions. Just go to the Legify website and type in the Legislation's title to get a link. An even quicker browser plug-in is also available.
Libraries
State Libraries often provide access to sources of legal information to residents.
The State Library of WA has print copies of
Available to members of the public.
Glossary
- Glossary of Parliamentary WordsFrom the Parliament of Australia
- Glossary of Parliamentary Terms and LanguageFrom the Parliament of Western Australia
CONTENT LICENCE
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Staff & Students
The University of Western Australia
PRV12169, Australian University