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LawCite Search Results Help

LawCite search results are normally presented as two tables - one for cases and one for law journal articles. Results are initially sorted by popularity (that is, one the basis of their "citation index" or the number of times a citation to the case or article appears). You can quickly go to the journals list by clicking on the "[Law journal articles matching this search]" link at the top left hand side of the screen.

For large lists (more than 5000 results) the two lists are combined and results are initially sorted by date (most recent first). This is done mainly for performance reasons. You will be prompted as to whether or not you want to continue prior to this list being displayed.

The results tables contain a number of columns. You can sort on the basis of the contents of each column by clicking on column name at the top of the table. The currently selected column for sorting is indicated by a † symbol. If you hover the mouse over various table elements, you get further information about the item or a note as to what will happen if you click on a link. If you want to do a new search, either click on the large LawCite logo, hit "back" in your browser or click on the "[LawCite Search]" link at the top right.

The columns themselves are as follows:

Case/Article Name

This column contains the case name or article title. This is the way the case or article is most commonly referred to in the full-text data from which LawCite is built. If you click on this name, you will get the LawCite entry for this cases or article (if one is available).

Citations

The Citations column contains all known citations for a case or article. Clicking on any live (blue) citations will bring up the full-text of the case or article. You can also hover over a citation to see what it is (ie which journal or series of law reports). The order of citations is neutral citation first (if any), authorised citation next (if any) and then citations ordered by how often they have been referenced.

Court/Author

This column contains the name of the court that handed down the decision or the author of an article. This is determined for cases on the basis of the series that appear in the citations list and in the case of articles from meta-data in any linked full-text version. This information will not always be available.

Jurisdiction

The Jurisdiction column list the country and (sometimes) the sub-jurisdiction. It is almost always available and again is derived from the series.

Date

This column lists the date or year of a decision or judgment. Dates refer to the date that a decision was handed down. A year is the year that a decision or journal article was first published.

Full Text

The Full Text column lists a place where the decision or article can be found in free text. Where available, this will normally be one of the Free Access to Law Movement sites (AustLII, BAILII, HKLII etc). Where no free version exists, a sensible starting point for finding the decision on one of the comercial services is listed. The latter is only intended as a guide as the decision may be available in a number of places.

Flags

This column has a flag indicting the nationality of the decision or article. It is intended to make it easy to see at a glance where things are coming from.

Citation Index

The Citations List column contains (as a minimum) a small LawCite logo. Clicking on this will bring up the LawCite record for the case or article. Where the case or article is frequently cited, a number of "stars" will appear. The greater the number of stars, the greater the popularity of a case or article. Each star indicates approximately 50 citations.

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