Business Law: AGLC

This guide is specifically designed for students studying the legal aspects of business, management and accounting. It contains resources about case law, legislation and the legal environment in which businesses operate.

AGLC Referencing guide

The Australian Guide to Legal Citation

This online version of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation is available from the Melbourne University Law Review website.  This 3rd edition was published in 2010 and provides a uniform system of legal citation.                                                                                              It is also available through our library.

 

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State Library of Victoria (www.slv.vic.gov.au)

Basic Examples of Legal Citation

Case Law Citation

Case Law citations include the following elements:

Element Case Name Year Volume Law Report Series* Starting Page Pinpoint
Rule Parties' names in italics. Where law reports are organised by volume number, the year the decision is handed down should appear in parentheses. Where law reports are organised by year, the volume year should appear in square brackets. An 'authorised' report series citation is preferred. First page of the case. Precede with a comma and space. Refer to 1.1.5 in the guide.
Example Murphy v Overton Investments Pty Ltd (2004)   216 CLR 388, 402 [29]

 

The citation will look like: Murphy v Overton Investments Pty Ltd (2004) 216 CLR 388, 402 [29]

*For a list of abbreviations for Report Series, refer to the AGLC guide, page 49, Section 2.3.2.

Legislation Citation

Legislation citations include the following elements:

Element Title Year Jurisdiction Pinpoint
Rule Short title of the Act in italics. The year in which the Act was originally passed, in italics. An abbreviated form of the jurisdiction in which the Act was passed, in parentheses. An abbreviation* followed by a number separated by a space.
Example Ambulance Services Act 1986 (Vic) s 3.1
The citation will look like:  Ambulance Services Act 1986 (Vic) s 3.1

*For a full list of abbreviations of a designation of a pinpoint, refer to the AGLC guide, page 66, Section 3.1.4 .

Legal Journal Citation

Legal Journal citations include the following elements:

Element Author Title Year Volume and Issue Journal Page Pinpoint
Rule As appears in publication but without full stops. As it appears on first page of article, in single quotation marks. Year of publication in parentheses. Volume number, no issue number except if journal is not consecutively paginated Full title of journal in italics. Number of the first page. Precede with a comma. The pinpoint will generally be a page number or range.
Example Barbara Mescher 'The Law, Stakeholders and Ethics: Their Role in Corporate Governance' (2011) 8 Macquarie Journal of Business Law 37 50

 

The citation will look like: Barbara Mescher 'The Law, Stakeholders and Ethics: Their Role in Corporate Governance' (2011) 8 Macquarie Journal of Business Law 37, 50.

Note: Electronic articles should not be cited if a printed edition exists.  If you are going to cite an electronic article you will need to include the URL following the citation, enclosed within '< >' symbols.