Guides: Legal Research: Case citators

Case citators

What is a case citator?

A case citator is a legal research tool which allows you to:

find cases
track a case's history and it's treatment by subsequent courts
provide links to relevant cases, legislation and secondary sources.

They allow you to determine if your case is still good law.

How to ensure cases are still "good" law (i.e. not overruled by subsequent cases)

It's important to research the judicial history of a case to ascertain whether the case has been overruled by subsequent cases or it is still being used.

Checking the judicial history of the case may also alert you to more recent judgments on your topic. This task is usually referred to as "noting up".
Noting up Australian cases is done by using a case citator. Common Australian case citators are Westlaw AU: FirstPoint, and Lexis Advance Research: CaseBase.
The most noteworthy annotations in a case citator are: disapproved, overruled, applied and followed. (Annotations differ between databases.)
A detailed description of these terms can be found via:
- Westlaw AU > Help > Content Overviews > Status Symbols Guide
- Lexis Advance Research > Help > Tutorials > Tutorials: CaseBase > CaseBase Signals

Case citator databases

If you cannot access the full-text of an authorised version in one case citator, try another one. For example, the full-text of CLR (the most authoritative report of High Court decisions) will be available in FirstPoint.

Lexis Advance Research & US Research
Lexis Advance provides access to case law, including law reports and unreported judgments.
Lexis Advance's case citators: CaseBase (Lexis Advance Research), and Shepard's Citation Service (Lexis Advance US Research) allows you to find cases, track a case's history and it's treatment by subsequent courts, and provides links to relevant cases, legislation and secondary sources.
Tutorials:CaseBase Signals Guide and How to use Shepard's Citation Service
Westlaw AU
Westlaw AU provides access to Australian reported and unreported cases. It contains authorised and specialist law reports, including the Commonwealth Law Reports and Federal Court Reports.
Westlaw AU's case citator: FirstPoint provides access to case references, citation, history and digest information.
Tutorials: How to use a FirstPoint record & Case Status Symbol Guide
Westlaw - United States and US Territories + International
Westlaw US and International provides access to cases law and more from the US, UK, Hong Kong and many other international jurisdictions.
Westlaw's case citator: KeyCite connects you to citing references and related sources, and enables you to determine the status of a case, statute, regulation, administrative decision patent or trademark.
Tutorials: How to use KeyCite
Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII)
- This link opens in a new window
Austlii is a free resource containing case law and unreported judgments for all Australian Commonwealth, States and Territories.
NOTE: Austlii's case citator: LawCite is an automated compilation unlike the case citators in Lexis and Westlaw which have been manually edited and complied by experts.
Tutorial: LawCite help