Authority treatment and citation practice 

Legal research is not finished when you find a case that appears to support your answer. You need to know what the case is, where it sits in the hierarchy, whether it has been followed or doubted, and exactly which passage supports your proposition.

Move from problem to research questions

Start with the problem, not the database. A useful research question identifies the jurisdiction, the source type and the legal issue. For example: "What is the current Commonwealth test for purposive statutory interpretation?" is better than "statutory interpretation cases".

Good research questions usually ask:

• What legislation governs the problem?
• Which court hierarchy matters?
• Is there binding appellate authority?
• Has the authority been changed by statute or later case law?
• What pinpoint supports the proposition I want to use?

Neutral and reported citations

A neutral citation identifies the court, year and judgment number, such as [2007] HCA 22. It is useful because it does not depend on a commercial report series. A reported citation identifies the law report volume, series and page. If an authorised report exists and is required by your citation style or institution, prefer it. If you use an unreported official judgment, make that clear.

The High Court website publishes official judgments from 1998 onward. The Federal Court's judgment collection covers Federal Court judgments from 1977 onward and is updated daily.¹ AustLII is extremely useful for research, linking and historical access, but it should not be described as the official publisher when an official court or legislation source is available.

Pinpoints are part of the reasoning

A pinpoint tells the reader where the proposition lives. In modern judgments, the pinpoint is often a paragraph number. In legislation, it is a section, subsection, paragraph or item. A citation without a pinpoint may identify the source but still fail to support the specific sentence you wrote.

Weak sentence:

Project Blue Sky says interpretation is purposive.

Stronger sentence:

In Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Authority [1998] HCA 28 at [69], the plurality treated statutory construction as requiring attention to the text, context and purpose of the Act.²

The stronger sentence gives the reader a route to verification.

One qualification belongs with that example. Hossain v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2018) 264 CLR 123³ adds a threshold Project Blue Sky does not state: Kiefel CJ, Gageler and Keane JJ held at [30] that "the threshold of materiality would not ordinarily be met in the event of a failure to comply with a condition if complying with the condition could have made no difference to the decision that was made". Noting up is exactly the step that surfaces this — the proposition is still good, and it is no longer complete on its own.

Noting up and subsequent treatment

Noting up means checking what later courts and legislation have done with the authority. A case may have been followed, distinguished, doubted, disapproved, overruled or affected by statute. Those words are not interchangeable.

| Treatment | What it usually means | | --- | --- | | Followed | The later court applied the authority. | | Distinguished | The later court accepted the authority but found a material difference. | | Doubted | The later court questioned the reasoning or correctness. | | Disapproved | A higher or later court criticised the authority. | | Overruled | A higher court declared the legal rule wrong. | | Reversed | An appellate court changed the result in the same litigation. |

A good research trail records the search date, database or official source, search terms, authorities considered and the reason each authority was used or rejected.

Responsible source use

Use official sources for verification. Use secondary sources to understand the area and discover primary material. University guides are helpful for citation habits and research method, but they are not legal authority for the proposition that a statute means something or that a case is binding.

Self-check

For every important proposition in a problem answer, ask:

1. Is this proposition supported by primary authority?
2. Have I used the best available source?
3. Have I included a pinpoint?
4. Have I checked whether the source remains current?
5. Have I explained why the authority is binding, persuasive or illustrative?

If any answer is no, the citation is not doing its job yet.