Improving online case law within the constraints of free access through heuristic linking and resulting discovery mechanisms

Funding: 2008: $111,430
2009: $115,163
2010: $150,000

Project Member(s): Mowbray, A., Chung, P.

Funding or Partner Organisation: Australian Research Council (ARC Linkage Projects)
High Court of Australia
Thomson Legal and Regulatory (Thomson Legal & Regulatory Ltd)
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen Glessen (Justis Publishing Limited)
Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration
Family Court of Australia
Federal Court of Australia (Federal Court of Australia Partnership Fund)
Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal

Start year: 2008

Summary: Sophisticated use of case law is essential to the work of Australia's Courts and legal profession. The key is interconnections between cases (the basis of the precedent system) and to other documents (e.g. Acts, Treaties, commentary). This project combines heuristic-based recognition of citations, standards developed by Courts and minimal editorial work, to develop a comprehensive low cost method of creating these interconnections and a consequent range of software-based methods of better access to caselaw. These improvements will be provided for free public access by Australia's largest case law provider (AustLII) and available to all Australian Courts and Tribunals.'',

Keywords: legal information systems, citations of court judgments, legal research, standards for court judgments, free access to legal information, judicial systems,

FOR Codes: Understanding legal processes, Justice and the law not elsewhere classified, Legal Processes, Legal Institutions (incl. Courts and Justice Systems), Civil Justice

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.