feature · 24 June 2026
On the Atlas: five legal research resources worth bookmarking
From AustLII to Queensland Judgments, five Atlas entries that make Australian case law and legislation easier to find and revisit.
The Profession
2 min read
The search starts with a case name half-remembered from a footnote. An hour later, twelve tabs are open and the authority that matters is still somewhere else. This week on The Profession Atlas, we are looking at five Australian legal research resources that deserve a deliberate place in the browser, each useful for a different part of the work.
AustLII: the broad starting point
AustLII puts Australian cases and legislation alongside treaties and legal journals, with free public access across a substantial collection. The joint facility of the UTS and UNSW law faculties is familiar to many practitioners; its breadth still makes it worth revisiting when a question crosses the boundaries of the database usually kept open. Start here to establish the shape of a topic or locate a named authority. Check coverage and currency against the relevant source.
JADE (BarNet JADE): a judgment with somewhere to go next
JADE combines access to Australian judgments with citator functionality. It offers a free tier as well as paid premium access. It is worth exploring when finding the judgment is only the beginning: citation connections provide a route into related decisions and subsequent consideration. Read the passages themselves before drawing conclusions about how an authority has been used. The relationship between two cases rarely fits comfortably inside a label.
Explore JADE (BarNet JADE) on the Atlas
LawCite: following the citation trail
LawCite is AustLII’s free automated citator for cases and articles. Its particular attraction is a simple research question: who has cited this, and where can that take the inquiry? A citation trail can reveal a later decision or scholarship that a conventional keyword search missed. The automated record is a research lead. For a practitioner returning to a familiar authority after some time away, that lead can be a useful place to begin.
Federal Register of Legislation: the Commonwealth source to keep close
The Federal Register of Legislation is the authoritative register of Commonwealth Acts, legislative instruments and compilations. Use it to locate the Commonwealth material itself, then examine the version and supporting information relevant to the research question. A general search result may get you to a familiar title; checking the actual legislative record helps establish what that title contains. State and territory legislation has its own official sources.
Explore Federal Register of Legislation on the Atlas
Queensland Judgments: a jurisdiction-specific research stop
Queensland Judgments is the free judgment database of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for Queensland. Its collection includes unreported judgments. A dedicated jurisdictional resource is worth knowing even when a national database is the usual starting point: it provides another way into the material and a focused destination to revisit. Explore its coverage before assuming that a missing search result means a decision does not exist.
Explore Queensland Judgments on the Atlas
These entries cover the broad search, the citation trail, the official legislative record and the jurisdiction-specific collection. Open the linked Atlas profiles to explore the resources and build a shortlist that suits the work you actually do. Atlas is free to consult.
The views expressed by contributing authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Profession.
