Skip to Main Content

Case law

Case reporting

Case reporting

Law reports are the written judgments of courts on cases which raise significant points of law or expand upon the current understanding of the law. Since the late 1990s unreported judgments are available for most jurisdictions.

Law reports are published for the purpose of being used as precedents, providing consistency in the development of common law by ensuring that like cases are decided in the same manner. They may relate to a particular jurisdiction or to a particular area of law, with almost all reported cases being heard in superior courts (all High Court of Australia decisions are reported).

For example, the Commonwealth Law Reports only report cases decided in the High Court of Australia, while the Federal Law Reports cover cases decided in courts of federal jurisdiction, other than the High Court.

The following flow chart shows that full text judgments can be split into two categories: reported judgments and unreported judgments. Reported judgments can then be split into two more categories: authorised reports and unauthorised reports. 

Reading cases and law reports

If you want to get more familiar with the anatomy of a law report - take a look at this Talking Essay from LawBore.

For help with reading a case, see Orin Kerr, ‘How to read a legal opinion: a guide for new law students’ (2007) 11 The Green Bag 51

Types of reports and judgments

Few series are mutually exclusive: cases may appear in several series depending on editorial interest and assessment of the importance of the case. For example, significant High Court decisions are reported in the Commonwealth Law Reports (CLR), Australian Law Reports (ALR) and Australian Law Journal Reports (ALJR).

  • The ALR and ALJR are unauthorised series and the CLR authorised
  • The Authorised Report Series is a list of authorised reports of various jurisdictions

An authorised report should always be cited in preference to an unauthorised report (Rules of the Supreme Court 1971 (WA) 0.34.5.9A).

The version of a case to be cited should follow the preference order below:

  1. Authorised report
  2. Generalist unauthorised report
  3. Subject-specific unauthorised report
  4. Unreported (medium neutral citation)
  5. Unreported (no medium neutral citation)

See our AGLC referencing guide for more details and examples:

When decisions are handed down by a judge or judges they are described as being unreported, thus all judgments start their life as being unreported. Decisions are then selected by the judge or judicial editorial board to be reported in the authorised series, or by publishers for reporting in one of the subject series of reports. Although there is debate about the precedent value of unreported decisions, they are heavily used as they may contain the only statement of the law on a particular subject.

Unreported judgments have different citation rules to law reports.

Authorised or official reports are those selected and approved by the judiciary, their nominees, or relevant governments department, containing cases which enunciate a general principle or point of law.

A series of court reports officially approved by the judiciary or government is known as an authorised or official series of reports. In each jurisdiction only one series is designated as authorised.

Cases which enunciate a general principle or point of law are usually included in the authorised series of reports.

For more information see The Journey of Authorised Law Reports: From the 'Mists of Antiquity' to the Third Millennium  

Unauthorised reports are produced quickly and many are directed towards satisfying the needs of specialist practitioners. Unauthorised series of reports include many reports of cases which may be published later in an authorised series, however they also include reports which may only be of transient interest, or illustrate the application of authoritative cases.