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University of Sydney Law Library

Pathfinder - Australian Family Law

CONTENTS Introduction Legislation Interpreting legislation: extrinsic materials Using the catalogue Some useful texts Cases Looseleaf services Conference / Seminar proceedings Journals Journal indexes Web resources and Databases Dictionaries of legal abbreviations Not held, try

Introduction

This document is a guide to key University of Sydney Law Library resources in the area of Australian Family Law

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Legislation

Legislation consists of acts and statutory rules or regulations and comes in many formats:

• Online
  ScalePlus for Commonwealth laws such as the Family Law Act, andNSW Legislation for NSW Legislation (such as the De Facto Relationships Act) are more up to date and authoritative than other sources
  These and other links to legislation on family law can be found under Acts and Regulations on the Law Web Resources page:
  http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/libraries/law/lig_primary.html#Statutes See also Timebase and Capital Monitor under Legislation on the Law Library's Law Databases page: http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/law/databases.html
  
• Printed copies
Australian legislation is in Bays 6-10 of the Law Library Reference Collection on Level 8
• Loose-leaf legislation as published in services such as Australian Family Court Legislation at LL346.94015/52A (Level 8 of the Law Library to the right of the Library entrance).
• Digested (ie summarised) in Australian Current Law Legislation or Australian Legal Monthly Digest, located in Bay 1 of the Law Library Reference Collection on Level 8.

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Interpreting Legislation: Intrinsic Materials

Since 1984, the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) s.15AB has allowed the use of extrinsic materials in the interpretation of legislation.
Extrinsic material includes explanatory memoranda, parliamentary debates (Hansard) including Second Reading speeches, as well as government, Royal Commission, Law Reform Commission and boards of enquiry reports.
These can be located in hard copy in the Law Library (check with library staff or the Catalogue for location details).
For online access, check the listings under Bills; Acts and Regulations; as well as Hansards/Parliamentary Debates on the Law Library Law Web Resources page http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/libraries/law/freeweblaw.html to see what is available.

For your convenience, some links have been provided below to some major Australian family law legislation

• Family Law Act 1975 http://scaletext.law.gov.au/html/pasteact/0/229/top.htm
• Commonwealth Legislation administered by the Family Court of Australia http://www.familycourt.gov.au/presence/connect/www/home/judgments/legislation/

Recent Federal bills are available - see the list at
Law Library - Law Web Resources - Legislation - Bills
http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/libraries/law/lig_primary.html#Bills

Government, Royal Commission, Law Reform Commission and Boards of Inquiry reports

Search the Catalogue under the name of the Commission as the author, or the title of the report if you know it.
For example, Australian Law Reform Commission. Review of the adversarial system of litigation: rethinking family law proceedings. 
Sydney, NSW, ALRC, 1997.

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Using the catalogue

Where are the books on family law?

The University of Sydney Library web catalogue is located at http://opac.library.usyd.edu.au/

The catalogue covers all libraries within the University of Sydney Library system (although it is possible with a keyword search to restrict your search to just one library, such as Law)

Searching for library resources:
The quickest way to find an item is to search for the Title if you know the first few words of the title

Subject option yields only items catalogued under prescribed subject headings (ie Library of Congress Subject Headings). The main Library of Congress subject heading for Family Law is Domestic relations
Here are some related headings:

• Child support
• Custody of children
• Desertion and non-support
• Divorce
• Domicile in domestic relations
• Family violence
• Guardian and ward
• Husband and wife
• Marital property -- Australia
• Married women -- legal status, laws etc
• Parent and Child (Law)
• Separation law

• Keyword option. This search is especially useful because it usually yields more hits, as it searches all fields in the record, including author, subject headings, title and series. Searches can be refined using Boolean logic and restrictions such as location, year of publication, publisher and material type.
  It can be used for example to input the phrase family law and australia to find books on family law, as that phrase is not used as a Library of Congress subject heading

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Some useful texts

• Altobelli, Tom Family law in Australia : principles and practice Sydney : LexisNexis Butterworths, 2003.
  Law Short Loan 346.94015 201
• Dickey, Anthony, 1943- Family law. 4th ed. Sydney, N.S.W. : Lawbook Co., 2002.
  Law Short Loan 346.94015 44 D
• Finlay, Henry Alan, Rebecca Bailey-Harris, Margaret F.A. Otlowski Family law in Australia Sydney : Butterworths, 1997.
  Law Short Loan 346.94015 7 C
• Keough, William, 1958- Child representation in family law / WJ Keough. North Ryde, N.S.W. : LBC, 2000.
  Law Short Loan 346.940135 17
• Monahan, Geoff. Family law / by Geoff Monahan ; general editor the Hon Mr Justice Young. 2nd ed. Pyrmont, N.S.W. : Lawbook Co., 2003.
  Law Short Loan 346.94015 169 A
• Parker, Stephen, Patrick Parkinson and Juliet Behrens Australian family law in context : commentary and materials. North Ryde, N.S.W. : LBC Information Services, 1999. 2nd ed.
  Law Short Loan 346.94015 96 A
• Private lives [videorecording] : Family Court / Sydney : ABC Video Program Sales, [2002?].
  Law Reserve 346.94015 188

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Cases

Cases are published in various formats. Some good places to look are:

• Printed Law reports
These include:
Family Law Reports
Australian Family law cases
CLR, ALJR, NSWLR
All Australian reports are located on Level 8.

• Looseleaf services (such as Australian Family law and Practice) see section 7 below for more detail

• Electronic Databases , including
  CLR, FLR, NSWLR, Fam LR

For online access to these and other report series see the full list of caselaw databases available on the Law Library homepage at http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/libraries/law/databases.html#cases

• Unreported judgments from the Family Court High Court of Australia and the High Court are on the Web at AustLII (http://www.austlii.edu.au)

• Digested (ie summarised) in either Australian Current Law Reporter, the Australian Digest, Australian Legal Monthly Digest or The Legal Reporter. located in Bay 1 of the Reference Collection on Level 8

To see if a case has been reported or judicially considered or to check a citation use a Case Citator

• Casebase and Australian Case Citator Plus are available as an electronic database under Case Citators and Cases on the Law Library Databases page http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/libraries/law/databases.html#cases

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Looseleaf services

Looseleaf services contain summaries of the law by topic, including commentary on cases, and full text of legislation
They are held on Level 8 of the Law Library

• Australian de facto relationships law.

Law Looseleaf 346.94016 11
• Australian Family Court legislation.

Law Looseleaf 346.94015 52A
• Australian family law

Law Looseleaf 346.94015 48
• Australian family law - family law news.

Law Looseleaf 346.94015 124
• Australian family law & practice

Law Looseleaf 346.94015 124
• Australian family law court handbook.
  Law Looseleaf 346.94015 66
• Family law precedents
  Law Loose-leaf 346.94015 177

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Conference/Seminar Proceedings

Conference papers can be difficult to find in a catalogue. If you do not have the exact title of the conference or seminar (do not search under the title of the paper in the catalogue) you can use a KEYWORD search e.g. family law australia congresses.
Here are a few from the catalogue:

• Advanced family law : papers presented for the Continuing Professional Education of the College of Law on Saturday 2nd & Sunday 3rd August 2003 / with the Family Law Practitioners Association of NSW ; [Presenters: Patrick Parkinson ...[et al.]].
  St. Leonards, NSW : CPE Dept. of the College of Law, 2003.
  Law Research 340.05 33
• Evidence in family law cases : papers presented at a seminar held in Sydney on 27 March 2003 / prepared & presented by Roger Harper ... [et al.].
  Bondi Junction, N.S.W. : Legalwise Seminars, 2003.
  Law Research 346.94015 205
• Family law : children's issues : papers presented at a seminar held in Sydney on 26 Feburary 2003 / prepared & presented by Donna Bowen ... [et al.].
  Bondi Junction, N.S.W. : Legalwise Seminars, 2003.
  Law Research 346.94017 36
• Family law : issues in property settlements : papers presented at a seminar held in Sydney on 19 March 2003 / prepared and presented by Cathie Blanchfield ... [et al.].
  Bondi Junction, N.S.W. : Legalwise Seminars, 2003.
  Law Research 346.940166 56
• International Society on Family Law. World Conference (10th : 2000 : Brisbane, Qld.)
  Family law : processes, practices and pressures : proceedings of the Tenth World Conference of the International Society of Family Law, July 2000, Brisbane, Australia / edited by John Dewar and Stephen Parker.
  Oxford ; Portland, Or. : Hart, 2003.
  Law Research 346.015 24
• National Family Law Conference (10th : 2002 : Melbourne, Vic.)
  The 10th National Family Law Conference : food for thought : conference handbook.
  Melbourne : Television Education Network, 2002.
  Law Research 346.94015 204

If you are aware of a recent major conference or seminar, it is also worthwhile searching the web using Google as papers or other information is often available there.

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Journals

All print journals in the University of Sydney Law Library are shelved alphabetically by title. Recent parts are on Level 8 and earlier, bound volumes on Level 10

Australia

• Australian family lawyer
• Australian journal of family law
• Current family law
• Family Law Council news
• Family matters

United Kingdom

• Child and family law quarterly
• Family law (Chichester)
• International journal of law, policy, and the family
• Journal of Social welfare and family law

United States /Canada

• American journal of family law.
• Canadian family law quarterly.
• Canadian journal of family law
• Family advocate : a practical journal by the ABA Family Law Section
• Family and conciliation courts review
• Family law quarterly
• Journal of family law (University of Louisville School of Law)

Europe

• The international survey of family law

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Journal indexes

The Law Library subscribes to the following journal indexes. Access is via our Law Databases page:
http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/libraries/law/databases.html

• AGIS Plus Text The Attorney General’s Information Service (AGIS) indexes and abstracts information on all areas of law from both Australian and overseas law journals.
• FAMILY: Australian Family and Society Abstracts
• APAIS (Australian Public Affairs Information Service) This is a general index of Australian journals in the social sciences.
• LegalTrac This is an American index but includes journals from other jurisdictions, including Australia. It has the broadest coverage of any legal journals index
• Wilsons Index to Legal Periodicals via Lexis. This is another US index which has a wide coverage of other jurisdictions. To limit your searches to Australia when using overseas databases, simply add in Australia when doing your searches.
• Legal Journals Index This is a British publication and its coverage is Britain and Europe.
• Family and Society Studies Worldwide Abstracts research, policy, and practice literature in the fields of Family Science, Human Ecology, and Human Development. International coverage.
• Child Abuse and Neglect U.S. based index of resources on the maltreatment of children
Note: Use American spellings and terms when using US based journal indexes eg labor not labour, organization not organisation
• Expanded Academic ASAP a database which is also accessible via the library catalogue, it contains citations to articles, news reports and reviews etc. in some 1500 social science, humanities, general science and current events periodicals.
• Lexis and Westlaw both provide full text of many journals

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Web resources and databases

There are some useful family law resources available on the Web.
For an up to date list, see the Weblaw Family Law Subject Guide at http://weblaw.edu.au/weblaw/display_page.phtml?WebLaw_Page=Family+Law
This website contains extensive links to legislation, Court decisions, as well as key national bodies and publications in the area of Australian family law.

Some other key websites and databases are:

• Family Law Online This is the Attorney General's guide, arranged under headings such as: Protection ; Children; Alternatives to going to court; Support; Relationships Outside Marriage; Property
• WorldLII's Family Law sitehttp://www.worldlii.org/catalog/105.html
• Lexis For student and staff access, see under Mega-Databases on the Library's Law Databases page

LEXIS contains a wealth of primary legal material on mainly U.S, but including some Australian, UK, Asian, Canadian, NZ, South African and European law and some full text journals

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Dictionaries of legal abbreviations

There are many places to look for legal abbreviations. Links to some online sources are found at: http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/libraries/law/abbreviations.html
Print copies in the Law Library include:

• Fong, C & Edwards, A Australian and New Zealand legal abbreviations, 2nd ed, Sydney, Australian Law Librarians' Group NSW Division, 1995.
  Law Reserve 349.90148 1A
• Kavass, II & Prince, MM World dictionary of legal abbreviations, Buffalo, NY, Hein & Co, 1991- (Looseleaf).
  Law Reference 340.014 11
• Prince, MM Beiber's Dictionary of legal abbreviations, 4th ed, Buffalo, NY, Hein & Co, 1993.
  Law Reserve 340.148 3B

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Not held, try.....

There are some resources which the University of Sydney Library does not hold.

• Finding Journals
  You can find out which Australian library holds a title by looking up the SIAL (Serials in Australian Libraries) database at the Law Library's Databases page under Journal Indexes
  http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/libraries/law/databases.html#journals
• Finding Books
  Try the University of New South Wales or Macquarie Library Catalogues (links available from the Library Catalogue page) http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/catalogue/othercat.html or library staff can check a database called Kinetica to see which library holds the title needed (ask at the Library Information desk).

For help finding information in the University of Sydney Law Library, feel free to ask at the Library Information Desk on Level 8.
For specific research assistance, the following Library staff will be happy to help:
Margaret McAleese, Law librarian 02 9351 0220
Carolyn Kearney, Information Services Librarian 02 9351 0293

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Compiled by Carolyn Kearney for the University of Sydney Law Library ( library@law.usyd.edu.au)