Ascertain the meaning of the abbreviations in the legal citation.
Dictionaries of legal abbreviations are kept near the Law Library Help Desk. The abbreviations will be either to a law report series or to an unreported judgement.
The title of a law report series will contain the word "report" or "cases". The title of unreported judgements will contain the word "court", "tribunal" or "commission".
Find Law Report series
Search by the title of the law report in the library catalogue. Select the TITLE search option from the drop down menu of the catalogue.
The search results will indicate whether the Library holds the report series online via a database or in print on the Law Library shelves.
Use the year/volume, parties' names and page number reference from the citation to find the case in either the online or print version of the report.
Find Unreported Judgements
Search by the name of the court, tribunal or commission in the library catalogue by using an internet search engine such as Google.
This will usually result in a link to a website for the court, tribunal or commission. Judgements are usually listed by the year of the judgements. Use the year and other information from the original citation to find a copy of the judgement.
