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14 Using Case Citators

The main role of a case citator is to provide extra information about cases. In Australian legal databases, any judgment of a superior court will have a citator record that includes information about the:

  • status of the case
  • publication and citation details
  • litigation history — whether the case has gone on appeal and been subsequently affirmed or reversed
  • subsequent judicial treatment — how later judges have treated the decision
  • consideration of earlier cases
  • secondary sources that cite the case
  • legislation considered by the case.

Always check case citators to understand the case.

The main case citators used in Australian legal research are:

  • CaseBase (Lexis Advance/Lexis+)
  • KeyCite (Westlaw Australia)
  • LawCite (AustLII)

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Legal Research Skills: An Australian Law Guide Copyright © 2025 by The University of Queensland, James Cook University, the University of Southern Queensland, Charles Darwin University, Southern Cross University, Queensland University of Technology, Deakin University, University of South Australia, Edith Cowan University, University of Tasmania and The Australian National University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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