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Law

Use this guide to access databases and websites important for legal research and guidance on locating law reports and unreported judgments, Acts of Parliament and delegated legislation, and secondary legal sources.

News Sources and Alerts

University of Tasmania subscribes to a number of Newspapers and news sources. There are also a number of online resources such as The Conversation and The Guardian that you can subscribe to.  Below are some resources that may help you stay up to date with legal news.

Google News

A Google alert can be used to monitor news published on the internet. To set one up, go to Google Alerts. When entering your search terms try to be as specific as possible to avoid retrieving too many irrelevant results. Here are a few tips:

  • If you only want results from newspapers or news websites, select News from the results type drop-down list
  • Enter phrases in double quotation marks, e.g. "exit tax"
  • Use a minus sign (-) in front of words you want to exclude, e.g. FSA -food
  • Use the site: operator to limit your search to specific sites, e.g. oman site:nytimes.com
  • To exclude results from a specific site use the -site operator, e.g. "alex salmond" -site:thetimes.co.uk

Once you are happy with your search, decide whether you want to receive alerts by email or RSS. If you choose email, you will need to have a googlemail or gmail email address. Finally, click "create alert".

Lawyerly

An independent news source devoted exclusively to legal news, Lawyerly is the daily current awareness tool of choice for Australia's best commercial lawyers.  Enter your email address to receive a daily newsletter delivered to your inbox.
Latest Global Legal News Legal news and developments from around the world from the Library of Congress' Global Legal Monitor. It is updated frequently and draws on information from official national legal publications, and reliable press sources. You can subscribe to all news, or narrow the alert to particular jurisdictions or topics. Alerts are available by email or RSS.

Setting up Alerts

Setting up Alerts

Setting up 'Alerts' in databases allows you to tailor your research. When set up, the database will notify you when new documents are added to the database that are relevant to your interests. This can save you time and bring to your attention up-to-date materials such as case law or articles in your chosen area.

The list of databases below is not exhaustive. Each database will have instructions on how to set up Alerts and you can access the help guides for each database below:

Case Alerts

BarNet JADE 

BarNet JADE is a free Australian caselaw database. You can be notified:

  • of new cases on a topic - using search terms, catchwords or topics (available as RSS feed only). See the JADE alerts FAQ for more information on setting up these alerts via RSS.
  • of all new decisions from particular courts and tribunals (via RSS feed only).
  • if the case you are tracking is cited in another case, in any Australian court or tribunal in any jurisdiction (available via email or RSS feed). See the JADE Help page on this type of alert for more information.

Best of all, JADE has really amazing alerting features - new cases discussing specific sections of legislation and specific paragraphs of cases.
European Union Cases

The EUR-Lex cases website (open access) provides EU Civil Service Tribunal, General Court and Court of Justice decisions.
Court Websites

Many courts, both in Australia and internationally, publish judgments on their websites and often have an RSS feed option to allow you to stay up-to-date with new judgments.
New Zealand Cases 

Email alerts can be set up for 'decisions of public interest' on the Courts of New Zealand Judgments website. Simply click on this link http://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/@@subscribe

Judicial Decisions of Public Interest are restricted to criminal sentences and judgments in which there may be public interest.

There is no way to be alerted to all decisions published on eg: Judicial Decisions Online or NZLII, or the decisions of individual courts, or subsequent consideration of a particular case.

Legislations Alerts

Timebase Legislation News - Australia

Timebase offers a free daily news email on legislative and other legal developments.

To subscribe, simply click on the 'Free Legislation News' button and enter your email address.  

Lawlex: Legislation and Bills alerts - all Australian Jurisdictions

 Lawlex provides comprehensive and up to date access to full-text Australian legislation, with associated Bill tracking, amendment & commencement information and links to related extrinsic materials.