Australian Guide
to Legal Citation
Summary and Samples



Cases


Cases published in law reports
The general form for entering cases published in law reports is to include the case name, law report volume, name, and year:

AGLC format
Commonwealth v Tasmania (1983) 158 CLR 1.

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Full text, Australian Guide to Legal Citation, Melbourne U Law Review


Case names
Generally, enter only the first plaintiff and the defendant.

AGLC format
Commonwealth v Tasmania (1983) 158 CLR 1.

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Full text, Australian Guide to Legal Citation, Melbourne U Law Review

Case names, individuals as parties
Where the parties are individuals, given names and initials are omitted:

AGLC format
Thwaites v Ryan [1984] VR 65.

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Full text, Australian Guide to Legal Citation, Melbourne U Law Review


Case names, corporation as party
Do not abbreviate the names of firms or corporations, except that "and" may be replaced by "&".

AGLC format
Bacchus Marsh Concentrated Milk Co Ltd v Joseph Nathan & Co Ltd (1919) 26 CLR 410 ('Bacchus Marsh').

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Full text, Australian Guide to Legal Citation, Melbourne U Law Review


Case name, Crown as first party
Abbreviate Rex ("The King") Regina ("The Queen") as 'R', except where the King or Queen is the respondent.

AGLC format
R v Kenney [1983] 2 VR 470.

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Full text, Australian Guide to Legal Citation, Melbourne U Law Review


Case name, Crown as respondent
Abbreviate Rex ("The King") Regina ("The Queen") as 'R', except where the King or Queen is the respondent.

AGLC format
Callaghan v The Queen (1952) 87 CLR 115 ('Callaghan').

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Full text, Australian Guide to Legal Citation, Melbourne U Law Review


Short case names
If the name of the case is particularly long, you can enter a shortened case name in the ShortCite ttl field to be used in subsequent citations of the case.

AGLC format
Mabo v Queensland [No 2] (1992) 175 CLR 1 ('Mabo').

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Full text, Australian Guide to Legal Citation, Melbourne U Law Review


Popular case names
If you are using a popular name for a case, enter the proper name for the case, and enter the popular case name in the ShortCite ttle field. The popular case name will be included in the first full citation and will then be used in subsequent citations of the case.

AGLC format, first full citation
Amalgamated Society of Engineers v Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd (1920) 28 CLR 129 ('Engineers' Case').

AGLC format, subsequent citations
Engineers' Case

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Full text, Australian Guide to Legal Citation, Melbourne U Law Review


Reporters that organize volumes by year
When the law report containing the relevant case is organized by year, use the Case, Reporter (Int'l) form to enter information. Enter the year of the volume in the Vol Yr field. Always include the year of the decision as well, so that you can sort the entries in your database by date. The year of the decision will not be included in citations formatted in AGLC format.

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