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Keeping up-to-date with developments in the legal field is essential for academic research, professional practice and staying informed about changes in legislation and case law. Whether you're focusing on a specific area of law or monitoring broader legal trends, current awareness tools can help you stay informed.
Why stay current?
Alerting services
Many legal publishers, databases and institutions offer alerting services that notify you of new content. These alerts are typically delivered via:
These services are available through platforms such as:
Social media and professional networks
Social media is used by legal professionals and institutions to share updates and insights. Consider:
These platforms can provide informal yet timely updates and foster engagement with the broader legal community.
There are many resources and services available to help you keep current with developments in the legal sector. A selection of key resources, mainly focused on the Australian federal or Queensland jurisdiction, are outlined below.
These resources provide updates on developments in the law; some are jurisdiction-specific and incorporate notifications about recent legislative changes and noteworthy case law.
Many law databases provide options to create various alerts to keep up-to-date with the latest research and database additions. For example:
Select News, articles and events in the left-hand menu to view or manage email news preferences or RSS feeds. Updates can be narrowed by practice area and type of content.
In Lexis+ Australia, create search alerts, topic alerts, publication alerts and case analysis alerts by clicking on the bell icon after running a keyword search, accessing a specific publication or case.
In Westlaw Australia, create publication alerts, WestClip alerts (updates on search queries), KeyCite alerts (developments in a case) or Alert24 alerts (legal and regulatory changes) using the below instructions.
Creating Publication Alerts for Journals, Bulletins and Law Reports - Westlaw Australia (Thomson Reuters, 2024) <https://support.thomsonreuters.com.au/product/westlaw-australia/video/creating-publication-alerts-journals-bulletins-and-law-reports>.
Creating WestClip Alerts - Westlaw Australia (Thomson Reuters, 2025) <https://support.thomsonreuters.com.au/product/westlaw-australia/video/creating-westclip-alerts-westlaw-australia-126-min>.
Creating KeyCite Alerts - Westlaw Australia (Thomson Reuters, 2023) <https://support.thomsonreuters.com.au/product/westlaw-australia/video/creating-keycite-alerts-westlaw-australia-158-min>.
Creating Bulletin and Alert24 Alerts - Westlaw Australia (Thomson Reuters, 2023) <https://support.thomsonreuters.com.au/product/westlaw-australia/video/creating-bulletin-and-alert24-alerts-westlaw-australia-130-min>.
Other databases offer similar features. For example, sign up for alerts for new Cambridge University Press journal issues or Oxford University Press law journals from within the below databases. You may need to register for a free personal account using your UniSQ email address.
JournalTOCs provides alerts for new issues of international journals across various subjects, including a few Australian law journals. Similar alert features are available on individual journal publisher's webpages. However, for full-text access from article links included in alerts, it's best to create alerts within UniSQ databases where possible.
Google Scholar also provides an alerts feature that advises when new items matching specific search criteria are added or when a document is cited.
Queensland and Australian federal sources are shown below. Check other Australian jurisdictions' official legislation and parliament websites for similar alerting services.
For key overseas jurisdiction legislative alerts, check relevant parliamentary or official government legislation websites as well as other Legal Information Institute websites such as BAILII, CanLII etc.
Case law updates are also covered in several of the general legal update resources.
On the Jade website, use My Jade to view digests or subscribe to feeds of the latest cases from individual Australian courts. Help is available.
On AustLII, refer to the Subscribe to database feed area at the bottom right-hand side on case law database pages.
Visit other court websites and court library websites for similar alerting services. For key overseas jurisdictions, also see other Legal Information Institute websites such as BAILII, CanLII etc for alerting options.
Law bogs provide updates and commentary about legal issues; some are focused on a specific jurisdiction and others on particular areas of law. The below resources include individual blogs, aggregators and lists of law blogs to investigate.
Access news articles on legal topics from Australian and overseas newspapers via the library's newspaper databases and other sources shown below.
You can customise Google News to follow topics of interest.