Authorised law reports are cases that have been approved by the judge before publishing and are viewed as an accurate record of the judgment. They contain decisions of the court or tribunal.
Cases are often reported in more than one law report series, such as CLR and ALR; citing the authorised report is preferable, if available. Note: not all law reports are authorised.
Not all decisions are published. However this does not mean that unreported or unpublished decisions are not available.
Cases reported in an authorised series must be cited in court rather than relying on printouts from databases such as AustLII.
2. Specialist law reports
Specialist reports cover only one area of law.
Examples of specialist law reports include:
Australian criminal reports
Australian tax cases
intellectual property reports.
3. Unauthorised law reports
While not the preferred authoritative version, unauthorised reports are a legitimate record of court decisions and may be the only source to locate certain cases.
If a judgment is published in both an authorised and unauthorised report series, cite the authorised version.
Finding law reports
A list of Australian and International law reports is available in the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (Fourth Edition): Appendix, pp. 297-327. Authorised, official or preferred series are identified with an asterisk.
Tip: 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.
Find authorised and unauthorised reports in our law databases:
An unauthorised report series covering significant decisions of the NSW District Court. To search: Enter a case name into the Case Title/Party Name field, or enter keywords into the Free Text field.
