Law Subject Guide
This guide is designed to assist you in locating information for law and taxation courses. In addition to links to information you will also find links to other library guides and resources.
- Starting your research
- Library catalogue
- Law databases
- Legislation
- Case law
- Resources for specific areas of law
- Information on the World Wide Web
- Make sure to...
Starting your research
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More help? |
Dictionaries and encyclopedias are useful for finding definitions or explanations of words and concepts. These publications may be available in print or electronic format.
The Library Catalogue can be used to search for additional titles and the collection of Web Reference Sources may contain other online sources.
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Useful law dictionaries & encyclopedias |
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Print resources |
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Black's law dictionary |
Call no. 340.03 6/1999 |
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Butterworths Australian legal dictionary |
Call no. R 349.9403 7 |
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Butterworths business and law dictionary |
Call no. R 346.0703 1 |
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Butterworths concise legal dictionary |
Call no. R 349.9403 8 |
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Osborn's concise law dictionary |
Call no. R 340.03 5/2001 |
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Online resources |
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Contains comprehensive commentary on the law relating to e-commerce in Australia, including reference to cases and legislation, and forms and precedents. |
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Halsbury's Laws of Australia is a concise yet comprehensive legal
encyclopaedia covering all Australian law. It provides definitive statements
of the law supported by primary authority contained in detailed footnotes.
Halsbury's covers 89 subject areas and all nine Australian jurisdictions. To
help research, Halsbury's includes a consolidated index and consolidated
tables of cases and |
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Contains A Dictionary of Law and The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions |
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Library Catalogue
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The CQU Library Catalogue is the database of all items (books, videos, audiocassettes, print journals and online fulltext journals, etc) held by the CQU library.
To find items on a topic you can form a keyword search or a subject heading search. Some examples are given below.
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Keywords |
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negligence AND law |
"social work" AND law |
precedent AND law |
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law AND Australia AND history |
law AND Australia AND contract |
"native title" AND law AND Australia |
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Subject headings for law |
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| constitutions | contracts |
Law databases
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More help? |
For a list of databases relevant to Law go to:
Databases & Resources by Subject: Law
Legislation
Most recent Australian legislation is available free from government websites.
If legislation is not online it may be available in print, either as Acts as passed or as reprints or compilations.
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Legislation resources |
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Legislation |
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AustLII provides access to acts and case law of the Commonwealth of Australia and most other Australian jurisdictions, courts and tribunals. |
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Queensland Legislation including current and repealed Queensland reprints, Acts and Subordinate Legislation as Passed from 1991 to current. |
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ComLaw contains all legislation of the Commonwealth and non self-governing Territories (and related material such as Reserved Commonwealth Laws, Bills, explanatory memoranda/statements, tables, indexes and other finding aids). |
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Bills |
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Provides access to all federal bills. Includes House daily bills list, Senate daily bills update and list, current bills, old bills, excise tariff proposals and custom tariff proposals. |
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Hansard |
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Provides access to the Senate Hansard, the House of Representatives Hansard and Senate, House of Representatives and Joint Committee transcripts. |
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Hansard produces electronic and hard copy transcripts of the debates of the parliament, evidence given before parliamentary committees and the proceedings of other tribunals. |
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Case Law
Successful legal research can require significant expertise. Here we restrict ourselves to finding known cases and simple subject searching.
If you have a reference to a particular case, i.e. its citation, e.g.
Mabo v Queensland (No.2) (1992) 172 CLR 1; 107 ALR 1; 66 ALJR 408
you should search the CQU Library Catalogue for the title of the report series. Abbreviations of report titles can be found in the indexes below and may be found in law dictionaries.
In the example above, 172 CLR 1 - means Volume 172 of the Commonwealth Law Reports at page 1. As you can see, this case was reported in three separate series of reports.
If you have access only to the name of a case, e.g. Wood v Glaxo Australia Pty Ltd [1994] you will need to consult the Australian Case Citator to see where, or if, it was reported or, especially if you are working on-line, access AustLII to see if the case is available there.
If you are searching for cases on a particular legal issue it may be best to start by searching for a reference work that will refer to the most important cases in that area. You could start with Halsbury's Laws of Australia (online) and then try a keyword search of the catalogue for works on the area of law you are researching. If you are simply looking for a case that discusses, for example (forensic evidence and fingerprints), you could try searching AustLII, Queensland Judgments or Lexis.
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Case law resources |
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Indexes |
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A searchable index of abbreviations used in citations of law reports. |
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Australian Case Citator |
Call no. S348.94047 1 |
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Finding individual cases |
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Commonwealth Law Reports |
See Austlii or Lexis for cases decided after 2004.
Call no. S 348.9404 2 |
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Federal Law Reports |
See Austlii or Lexis for cases decided after 2004. Call no. S 348.9494 1 |
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Queensland Reports |
See Austlii or Lexis for cases decided after 2005.
Call no. S348.94304 2 |
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All England Law Reports |
See Lexis for cases decided after 2002.
Call no. S348.41 1 |
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This database provides access to a number of Australian and international reports including: Administrative Law Decisions (Australia) Some unreported judgments are also available via Lexis. |
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Provides access to judgments handed down in Queensland courts. |
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AustLII provides access to case law of the Commonwealth of Australia and most other Australian jurisdictions, courts and tribunals |
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Finding cases on a given legal issue |
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Halsbury's Laws of Australia is a concise yet comprehensive
legal encyclopaedia covering all Australian law. It provides definitive
statements of the law supported by primary authority contained in detailed
footnotes. Halsbury's covers 89 subject areas and all nine Australian
jurisdictions. To help research, Halsbury's includes a consolidated index
and consolidated tables of cases and |
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| Resources for specific areas of law | |
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Company and corporations law |
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Australian Corporations and Securities Reports |
This series of law reports contains judgments from 1989 to current from all Australian jurisdictions and covers the full range of corporations and securities law. |
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Australian Company Law Cases |
Provides reports of Australian company law and securities decisions, including decisions of the Takeovers Panel, and selected cases from overseas jurisdictions, from 1971 to the present time. |
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A subject-based analysis of the principles of corporations legislation, dealing with the creation, operation and winding up of a company, building from basic legal principles, case law and legislation. |
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Tax law |
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TAXPOINT combines more than 50 databases to provide complete information about laws on income tax, goods and services tax, capital gains tax, fringe benefits tax, superannuation and other areas of federal taxation law. |
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Family law |
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CCH Family Law Library |
A comprehensive collection covering legislation, cases and commentary on family law and child support. Includes the Family Law Handbook. |
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Occupational health and safety law |
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The IHS Australian Occupational Health and Safety File is a comprehensive collection of state and federal legislation, codes of practice, guidelines, handbooks, conference proceedings, research reports, safety bulletins and other documents. |
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E-commerce |
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Contains comprehensive commentary on the law relating to e-commerce in Australia, including reference to cases and legislation, and forms and precedents. |
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Information on the World Wide Web
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More help? |
Searching for information on the World Wide Web can be a huge task. Here are some websites you may like to begin with.
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Law web sites |
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A list of commonly used law report abbreviations by the Murdoch University Library. |
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National Library of Australia web page with links to numerous legal web sites, on a variety of topics. The 'law by subject' section is particularly useful if you are investigating a particular aspect of law, for example Aboriginal Law. |
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Australian Government web site, providing access to Government legal information and services. |
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The commission conducts inquiries, called references, into areas of law reform as requested by the Attorney-General. |
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The catalogue of catalogues of worldwide law on the Internet. It aids legal research by arranging all indexes of law and government into a uniform, universal and unique meta-index. |
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Provides numerous law links for legal professionals, students & businesses. |
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Information about the Law Council's role, history, structure and current activities. |
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Department of the Federal Parliamentary Library web page with links to various web sites and grouped by country (including Australia) or topic (e.g. Constitutional Law). |
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An excellent comprehensive overview of Australian law and legal systems, along with his recommendations for the best law resources. |
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A digital network devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research, composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences. |
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A gateway to Internet resources on Australian law, put together by a co-operative of law librarians from various Australian universities. Topics covered include taxation law, intellectual property, industrial law and environmental law. |
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Make sure to...
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More help? |
- evaluate your resources
- use an appropriate referencing system
- do not plagiarise