Law and legislation

Finding database articles

Do a search through a number of law & legislation databases simultaneously using Supersearch:

Enter your search: [you will need to login]

e.g., privacy act AND victoria (do not use any quotation marks)

This quicksearch option searches across 10 law & legislation databases.
To link to the full-text of articles (if available), click on the full text button :

The search above will often retrieve a large number of hits but many of those hits may have no full text. If that happens, try searching one or more of the individual databases or online journals listed below :

Individual databases

AGIS Plus Text
Based on the Attorney General's Information Service this database provides full text articles from Australian, New Zealand and Pacific law journals and selected articles from major US, UK and Canadian law journals. Covers all aspects of law.
APA-FT
Australian Public Affairs Full Text indexes a wide range of periodicals, newspapers, scholarly journals, conference papers and books. Subject coverage includes business, health, current affairs, economics, humanities, law, literature, politics and social sciences. To only search the Alternative Law Journal, click here.
CINCH
Australian Criminology Database indexes and abstracts articles on all aspects of crime and criminal justice including corrections, crime, crime prevention, criminal law, criminology, juvenile justice, law enforcement, police and victims of crime.
Informit Search
Select this link to search the entire collection of Law databases (including the three listed above) in INFORMIT simultaneously.
AustLII
The Australian Legal Information Institute publishes acts, regulations and cases for the Commonwealth and Australian states and territories. AustLII also provides links to Australian and world law resources on the Internet.
CCH Law Libraries
A range of Australian legal publications and resources covering taxation, industrial law, corporations law, trade practices and consumer law, and human resource management. NB Access is only to active subscriptions. Other CCH products are shown in grey and are not available.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts, in EBSCOhost - Covering law enforcement and criminal justice. Some full-text access, however you can try clicking on the full text button to get the full-text from a different database (but there is no guarantee of success).
LexisNexis AU
Access to selected full text Australian legal journals published by LexisNexis Legal Australia. Some of the titles are: Australian Law Reports, Victorian Reports, Employment and Industrial Law.

Law dictionary (online)

Oxford Dictionary of Law

E-books: books online

Essential Australian Law - Author: Barker, David
Published: London; Routledge Cavendish Australia, 2000
Understanding The Australian Legal System - Author: Gifford, Donald J
Published: London; Routledge Cavendish Australia, 1998
Australian Essential Tort Law - Author: Stuhmcke, Anita
Published: London; Routledge Cavendish Australia, 2001
Legal Writing - Author: Webley, Lisa
Published: London; Routledge-Cavendish, 2005

You can find lots more e-books in the Library Catalogue by selecting an Online Resources Keywords search and trying searches like: australia law, australia legal, court, etc.

Subject gateways and portals

LegalOnline
The Victorian Government's legal information website containing fact sheets, links to legal practitioners, relevant legislation and agencies.
WebLaw
WebLaw is an Australian portal with links to the best online law resources, selected by lawyers and legal teachers. Click on sets of links arranged by subject, such as Torts, Native Title, Family Law or browse their index to find what you want.
Parliament of Australia Library - Law Internet resources
Excellent gateway of links to information and legislation. Includes sections such as the Legal Profession & the Courts, Statute Law, Terrorism law and many more.

Australian law firm publications

Allens Arthur Robinson - recent publications: Available in either HTML or PDF Full Text. As well as the Recent publications, look through the Archived material via the left-hand side menu.
Arnold Bloch Leibler - Find-a-publication: Select a practice area from the drop-down menu and enter any relevant keywords. Publications are in PDF format.

Legislation for the Commonwealth, States and Territories

AustLII Australian Legal Information Institute Databases
Acts, Regulations and Court Decisions for the Commonwealth and the States.
GovPubs "GovPubs: the Australian Government Publications Guide is a guide to selected types of Australian government publications, such as Acts, Hansards, Gazettes and Parliamentary Papers, located in Australia's National, State and Territory libraries or available on the Internet. A historical description of each publication is provided, and holdings information will enable you to locate resources in each library or online."
Includes:

Acts, ordinances, statutes
Bills
Explanatory memoranda
Subordinate legislation / regulations
LAWLEX
Search for Australian legislation for the Commonweath, States and Territories. Includes a subject index to Legislation.
NOTE: Only basic features of this resource are available for you to use. We do not have complete access.
ScalePlus
Commonwealth legislation. NOTE. No new material has been added since January 2005 although Current Compilations and Numbered Acts will be maintained. ScalePlus will soon be replaced by ComLaw (see immediately below).
ComLaw became available online in January 2005. It will soon replace ScalePlus (as of Jan 2009, still not completely...).

Victoria: Legislation and parliamentary documents

Victorian Legislation and Parliamentary Documents
Acts, Bills and Statutory Rules for Victoria. For more, see The Parliament of Victoria.
GovPubs
Government publications (such as Acts, Hansards, Gazettes and Parliamentary Papers). See immediately above for more information about GovPubs' contents.

Courts and Tribunals

(most of these have explanations of process or procedure)

Other Australian resources

The Institute of Legal Executives (Victoria) Professional association. Their bi-monthly journal, The Legal Executive, is available to students and the last 18 months' of issues are available online through the Publications link in the Resources section.
Law Council of Australia
“Representing around 50,000 legal practitioners across the country”. Professional association.
Law Institute of Victoria
Privacy Victoria - “The Information Privacy Act gives Victorians privacy rights. The law requires State government and local councils to protect the privacy of your personal information….Privacy Victoria is the key body in a system regulating the way Victorian government agencies and local councils collect and handle personal information.” Relevant Laws, Case Notes and Publications are among the pages available.
Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Commonwealth Ombudsman - also see the Ombudsman Victoria site.
Legal Aid Victoria
FindLaw Australia
provides current awareness services, newsletters and articles including resources for lawyers, students, business and the public.
Office of Public Prosecutions Victoria
"The DPP has responsibility for prosecuting on behalf of the Crown in the High Court, the Supreme Court of Victoria and the County Court of Victoria all indictable offences under the laws of the State of Victoria". Also see the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
Parliament of Australia
Victoria Law Foundation
"An independent, public benefit organisation making law accessible”. A number of resources are available for free through their Free and Shop page, including Death at Blue Hills - a model criminal trial; the Rural Law Online website; a number of other general and student pamphlets & manuals.

International resources

WorldLII
United Nations International Law web site - Includes links to the International Criminal Court, International Court of Justice and the International Law Commission.

Last maintained by: Nick Pavlovski (npavlovski@swin.edu.au), late January, 2009