Westlaw Asia Guide - Australian case citator - FirstPoint Scope
What is FirstPoint?
FirstPoint is a case law research tool that integrates content from a number of Thomson Reuters leading case law research products, such as the Australian Digest and Australian Case Citator. You can use FirstPoint to:
- Research a particular area of law using FirstPoint’s unique classification scheme and identify cases relevant to that area;
- Research the litigation history of a particular case and identify other cases which have considered your case;
- Read case summaries of key reported and unreported decisions – FirstPoint contains all the same case summary information found in the Australian Digest and the Australian Legal Monthly Digest (ALMD), all conveniently located in the one easy-to-search database.
- Conduct a custom search across a number of specialised search fields to identify particular information – for example, cases which consider a particular piece of legislation or judgments by a particular judge.
Coverage
FirstPoint is built from the citator information (litigation history and cases considered) contained in the Australian Case Citator, and case summaries from the Australian Digest and the ALMD.
The coverage of these products (and hence of FirstPoint) is as follows:
Australian Case Citator – Citator information for Australian reported cases starting from 1825.
Coverage of Australian unreported cases starts from September 1999.
- Refer to Appendix A for details of the report series included in the Australian Case Citator.
- Refer to Appendix B for more detail on which unreported cases receive citator information on FirstPoint.
Australian Digest and ALMD – Classifications and case summaries for significant Australian reported cases starting from 1825. Classifications for unreported Australian judgments from September 1999 onwards, with summaries for key unreported judgments from September 1999 also.
- Refer to Appendix A for a list of report series included in the Australian Digest and the ALMD.
- Refer to Appendix B for more detail on unreported case coverage.
FirstPoint is updated each working day with citator information derived from the latest case law and new summaries from key cases.
FirstPoint contains links to full text law reports and unreported judgments, as well as full text law reports in PDF format. Please note that separate subscriptions are required to access this content.
FirstPoint allows the researcher to search under the following categories:
| Party Names | This field searches the title and full list of party names in the case. |
| Citation | Use this field to search for a case by year, volume, series and page number, e.g., 175 CLR 1. |
| Subject | This field searches for content by legal classification. For example, you can search for cases about penalties for environmental offences by typing “penalties” into the search box and specifying that the search be confined to the “Environment and planning” classification. |
|
Legislation Title Legislation Provision Number |
Use these fields to find cases that judicially consider a section of an Act. |
|
Cases Cited (Party) Cases Cited (Citation) |
These fields allow you to narrow your search down to cases which have cited or referred to other cases by the party names or citation. |
| Court | Use this field to search by court, e.g. Supreme Court of Victoria. |
| Judge | Use this field to limit a search to cases heard by a particular judge/s surname, e.g., Kirby. |
| Year | This field narrows the search down to cases heard in a particular year or range of years. |