Finding and navigating case law

JADE indexes over 790,000 decisions from every Australian court and tribunal. Here’s how to find the right case and get the most from it once you do.

Search by citation

If you have a citation, type it directly into the search bar. JADE recognises all standard Australian formats:

  • [2024] HCA 1 — medium neutral citations
  • (2024) 299 CLR 1 — law report citations
  • Mabo v Queensland (No 2) — party names work too

You can mix and match. JADE will resolve the citation and take you straight to the decision.

Search by topic

When you don’t have a specific case in mind, use keyword search. JADE searches the full text of every decision, so you can search for legal concepts, factual scenarios, or specific phrases. Put phrases in quotation marks for exact matching — “duty of care” will find that exact phrase rather than cases mentioning “duty” and “care” separately.

Once you’ve found your case

Check the citation network. The most valuable thing about reading a case in JADE is seeing what connects to it. Look for:

  • Cases cited — the authorities the court relied on
  • Cited by — later decisions that have cited this case (critical for checking if it’s still good law)
  • Parallel citations — the same case reported in different law reports

Use the visualisation (Professional). Click the visualisation icon to see the precedent tracker — a map of how this case connects to the broader body of law. Hover over connections to see the nature of the citation. This is the fastest way to build an authorities list from a single starting case.

Filtering results

When a search returns too many results, use the filters on the left side. You can narrow by jurisdiction, court level, date range, and more. For practitioners in a specific state, filtering to your jurisdiction’s courts first often cuts results dramatically.

Saving your research

Found a case you’ll need again? Use JADEmarks to save it to your library. You can organise saved cases into folders and add notes. Your JADEmarks sync across devices, so you can save a case on your desktop and access it from your phone.