What is FirstPoint?

FirstPoint is a case law research tool that integrates content from a number of Thomson Reuters leading case law research products, such as the Australian Digest and Australian Case Citator. You can use FirstPoint to:

• Research a particular area of law using FirstPoint’s unique classification scheme and identify cases relevant to that area;
• Research the litigation history of a particular case and identify other cases which have considered your case;
• Read case summaries of key reported and unreported decisions – FirstPoint contains all the same case summary information found in the Australian Digest and the Australian Legal Monthly Digest (ALMD), all conveniently located in the one easy-to-search database.
• Conduct a custom search across a number of specialised search fields to identify particular information – for example, cases which consider a particular piece of legislation or judgments by a particular judge.

Coverage

FirstPoint is built from the citator information (litigation history and cases considered) contained in the Australian Case Citator, and case summaries from the Australian Digest and the ALMD.

The coverage of these products (and hence of FirstPoint) is as follows:

Australian Case Citator – Citator information for Australian reported cases starting from 1825.

Coverage of Australian unreported cases starts from September 1999.

• Refer to Appendix A for details of the report series included in the Australian Case Citator.
• Refer to Appendix B for more detail on which unreported cases receive citator information on FirstPoint.

Australian Digest and ALMD – Classifications and case summaries for significant Australian reported cases starting from 1825. Classifications for unreported Australian judgments from September 1999 onwards, with summaries for key unreported judgments from September 1999 also.

• Refer to Appendix A for a list of report series included in the Australian Digest and the ALMD.
• Refer to Appendix B for more detail on unreported case coverage.

FirstPoint is updated each working day with citator information derived from the latest case law and new summaries from key cases.

FirstPoint contains links to full text law reports and unreported judgments, as well as full text law reports in PDF format. Please note that separate subscriptions are required to access this content.

FirstPoint allows the researcher to search under the following categories:

Note: The above screenshots of the FirstPoint record for Attorney-General (SA) v Corporation of the City of Adelaide have been cropped in order to fit the FirstPoint features in this document. As a result, the images may show only part of the available FirstPoint content for some of the highlighted FirstPoint features.

1. To highlight text, select and drag your mouse to highlight the words on the screen
2. Select Add Highlight from the annotation menu

3. Click the yellow highlighted text to display the Delete and Add Note options

Add a note

1. To add a note to text, select and drag your mouse to highlight the words on the screen
2. Select Add a Note from the annotation menu

3. In the pop-up box, add your note and click Add

4. The text will highlight in yellow with a green note icon. Click the note icon to see, edit, or delete your note

Show or hide your annotations and highlighting

1. Click the Hide/Show Annotation links to hide and display your highlighting and/or notes

Boolean operators such as AND, OR, and BUT NOT allow you to refine and expand your search.

• AND finds results that have both words on either side of the ‘and’ operator, e.g., director AND insolvency
• OR finds results that have either word on each side of the ‘or’ operator, e.g., car OR truck
• BUT NOT finds the first word but not the second, e.g., child BUT NOT children

Terms include:

• Phrase searching, which uses “quotation marks” to find words exactly as written
• An exclamation mark to find the root of a word, e.g., claim! will show results with claim, claims, claimed, claimant, claiming, etc.
• An asterisk can be used to replace a single character, e.g., wom*n will show results with both ‘woman’ and ‘women’

Connectors include:

• /p and +p allows words or phrases to be found in the same paragraph of a document, e.g., fiduciary duty /p “winding up”
  • /p means the words/phrases can be found in any order, e.g., ‘winding up’ can be before ‘fiduciary duty’ in the paragraph
  • +p means the words must be found in the order as written, e.g., ‘fiduciary duty’ must appear before ‘winding up’ in the paragraph
• /s and +s allows words or phrases to be found within the same sentence of a document, e.g., negligence /s statutory duties
  • /s means the words/phrases can be found in any order, e.g., ‘statutory duties’ can be found before ‘negligence’ in the sentence
  • +s means the words must be found in the order as written, e.g., ‘negligence’ must appear before ‘statutory duties’ in the sentence.
• /n and +n allows words or phrases to be found within a number length of each other in a document, e.g., evidence /15 bias
  • /n [number] means the words can be found in any order, e.g., 'bias' can be within 15 words before or after 'evidence'
  • +n [number] means the words must be found in the order as written, e.g., 'evidence' must be found within 15 words before 'bias'