In general, when starting your legal research, it's good to start in secondary sources which will help you identify relevant cases and legislation (primary resources).

Start by checking:

• your subject modules
• your textbook
• your required readings
• journal articles, books, book chapters or other resources you found in Primo or databases when researching your topic.

If you still haven't identified relevant primary sources after checking these secondary sources, check a legal dictionary or encyclopaedia.

• Legal dictionaries will help you define a term and place it in a legal context.
• Legal encyclopaedias summarise aspects of the law, giving you an overview and point to important legislation and cases.

Key legislation and case law on your assessment topic can be identified via relevant dictionaries or encyclopaedias, for example:

• Australian Law Dictionary - 3rd ed.
• Laws of Australia

You'll find more resources on legislation and case in the Law Library Guide

Legislation is the largest source of law in Australia and forms the basis of the Australian legal system.

Statute law is made by Parliament. Legislation is introduced into Parliament in draft format, known as a Bill. Once it passes both Houses of Parliament and receives royal assent it becomes an Act.

Finding legislation from a citation

1. Determine the jurisdiction - indicated at the end of the citation in brackets.  For example, Mental Health Act 2007 (NSW) is an Act from the NSW Parliament.
2. Find the legislation online - go to the database for the relevant jurisdiction (see box below). There will be options to browse by legislation type, such as Bill, Act, Delegated Legislation and so on.

Australian Legislation by jurisdiction

Case law is an important primary source in legal research.  It refers to the decisions made by the courts which can both establish and refine legislative law.

Elements of a case citation

Case citations (references) hold all of the key information to allow you to locate a case.  Let's have a look at an example of an AGLC4 case citation to identify each of the elements:

Mabo v Queensland [No 2] (1992) 175 CLR 1

Finding a case from a citation

Then search for the law report series in Primo Search.  If the library subscribes to the report series, follow the link to view online and navigate to the correct volume.