Legal cases

Introduction

Note: The APA style guide focuses on legal sources from the United States and United Nations, and refers readers to The Bluebook: A uniform system of citation (Bluebook, 2015), which does not cover Australian legal sources. In Australia, the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC) is widely used by the legal community as a standard for re legal citation.  AGLC (4^th ed) 2018 is published by the Melbourne University Law Review Association Inc in collaboration with the Melbourne Journal of International Law Inc.

Some of the following examples are taken from the AGLC. Please check with your school or course description for any specific requirements regarding referencing.

In-text citations

Paraphrasing

When citing a case in-text, it is necessary to include the title of the case in italics followed by the year in brackets. Alternatively, it is also acceptable to include all case details enclosed in brackets; italicise only the case title, followed by the year.

According to the case of Nasery v Global Rail (2024) . . .

. . . (Minister for the Environment v Sharma, 2022).

Direct quote

Place direct quotes between double quotation marks " " and provide the title of the case, year, section heading (if applicable), and paragraph number.

"On 16 May 2014, a delegate of the Minister refused to grant the 572 visas to the first and second respondents because ..." (Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v Kumar, 2017, para 6).

Reference list

Template

Plaintiff v Defendant [No #] (Year) volume number LAW REPORT SERIES TITLE starting page number. URL