NSWLR

The New South Wales Law Reports (the NSWLR) are the authoritative record of judgments for NSW Courts. NSWLR therefore has to be produced to the highest quality standards.

This page summarises the structure, production, publication schedule and availability of NSWLR. For further information, please contact the Council office on +61 2 9266 0768, or at   This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Structure

NSWLR is produced in paperback Parts of approximately 150 pages. After five Parts have been published these are consolidated in bound volumes of approximately 750 pages.

Each Part of NSWLR includes:

•   law reports comprising the text of a judgment (sometimes edited for publication)  with a headnote highlighting the legal points of note and a list of cases cited in the judgment

•  an index to the subject matter covered in the reports in that Part

•  a table of all cases reported in the Part

•  advance notices of cases to be reported in forthcoming Parts

•  a list of statutes, rules etc judicially considered.

Each volume of NSWLR includes:

•  reports from all five Parts of the volume

•  the results of applications for special leave to appeal to the High Court

•  an index to the subject matter covered in all of the reports in the volume.   

Production

1.         Judgments and decisions of New South Wales Courts and Tribunals are published online by the NSW Attorney General’s Department on its Caselaw website as they are provided by officers of those Courts and Tribunals.

2.        The NSWLR Editor, Bret Walker SC, selects those judgments that will be significant in the development, interpretation and/or application of the law in New South Wales .

3.        The NSWLR Assistant Editors oversee the drafting of headnotes by reporters with expertise in the relevant area of law. The Court is invited to comment on the headnotes, which have to be approved by the Editor prior to publication in NSWLR.

4.        The NSWLR Production Editor styles the text of the judgment so that it is clear and consistent with editorial conventions, and oversees the checking and correction of all citations and references by the Council’s Research Assistants.

5.        Reports are typeset in such a way that the formatting, including page, paragraph and line breaks, stays true wherever the report is published in hard copy or online. This ensures the reliability of NSWLR references in Court.

Publication schedule 

In the NSWLR, the priority is quality. The NSWLR publication schedule is therefore determined by the availability of sufficient reports that meet the Council’s standards of legal value and editorial accuracy, not by the calendar.

Less than 10 percent of judgments are reported; parts are produced every three to four weeks on average; two to three complete volumes are produced every year.

Availability of NSWLR, Parts and Volumes 

Parts and bound volumes of the NSWLR – both recent and older – are available from the Council. For details, please contact:

     NSWLR Customer Service

     138 Bonds Rd 

     Riverwood  NSW  2210 

     Ph: +61 2 85256333;  Fx: +61 9534 8924 

     E:    This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   

Second hand law book dealers

For second hand sets or single volumes of NSWLR, contact an agent who specialises in law books, such as:

Ross Wishart, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , ph: +61 2 9918 9288

Lyndal Publications, ATTN Geoff Daley, Ph: +61 3 9873 4068

The Law Shop, ATTN Tony Delauney, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , www.lawshop.com.au, Ph: +61 8 9447 5954

Online access to NSWLR

The Council does not offer NSWLR online. Instead, the Council licenses LexisNexis AU and Thomson Law Book to provide digital copies of NSWLR to their online subscribers.* For details, please contact:

* NB. The Council of Law Reporting proposes no preference for the online services of either LexisNexis AU or Thomson Law Book. Both receive the same material from the Council at the same time.