I’ve mentioned this before, but a tip as useful as this is worth repeating. Perhaps I’ve just got used to it over time, but I haven’t found anything nearly as user friendly for getting me to the search engine I need for the law report series I am after.

Bookmark the On-line Case Law page of the La Trobe University Law Library. It’s quick, up-to-date and free.

The page is available to anyone. It lists most common abbreviations used in reported and unreported legal citations. (The link above will take you to a table of the main ones; a much longer list, as well as links to other similar sites, is available at the Legal Abbreviations Search page).

The La Trobe system provides information about which subscription service carries a particular report series. Where this is a free service, such as AustLII or the Supreme Court Law Library, the links will take you straight there. Of course, if it’s a commercial service you are referred to, you must be a subscriber to access that service.