For Australian law students
CaseSharp and Lexis+ AU
Your university pays for Lexis+ AU, it is a deeper research platform than CaseSharp, and if you need authorised reports or practitioner commentary then use it, because it is already paid for. This page answers the narrower question a law student actually has: which of these two do I open on a Sunday night, and what happens to my access the week after I graduate.
Last updated 3 August 2026. Written by the CaseSharp team in Sydney. Westlaw is covered here too, because students experience both as one thing: the databases the library gives you.
Short answer
Lexis+ AU and Westlaw are practitioner research platforms with deep commentary and authorised reports. They were not built to brief a case for a tutorial, format AGLC4 footnotes, check the citing cases behind a scaffold, or work in the ten minutes before class. That is what CaseSharp is for. Most students who use CaseSharp keep using their library databases too, and the free plan means you do not have to choose while you are still enrolled.
What Lexis+ AU gives you, and it is a lot
Lexis+ AU is a full research platform: Australian cases and legislation, authorised reports, encyclopaedic commentary across practice areas, a mature citator, and an assistant that drafts inside Microsoft Word and Outlook. Westlaw covers similar ground with its own commentary and reported series. Between them they are the reason your faculty spends what it spends on the library, and for a research essay that needs commentary rather than cases, they are the right tool.
Two things worth knowing while you are still enrolled. First, these platforms are built for a practitioner charging time, so the workflows assume a research session, not a twenty minute gap between classes. Second, some faculties now provide an AI research assistant through the library. Check what your library already gives you before you pay for anything, including this.
What CaseSharp is for
CaseSharp is built around four jobs in a law degree. Brief a case before a tutorial, and get material facts, issue, rule, application and what was held with each part linked back to its paragraph. Answer a problem question, and get the authorities attached with a citation graph on each one, ranked by influence, so you can tell the well-relied-on line from the interesting one. Write a research essay, and get AGLC4 in full form and short form with pinpoints, flagged for manual review when a reference cannot be parsed. Prepare for an open-book exam, and check the citing cases for the cases in your notes before the paper rather than after it.
CaseSharp does not ship commentary, does not draft inside Word, and does not carry authorised reports. Those are real Lexis+ AU strengths and the price of that platform reflects the content library behind it. What CaseSharp does is show you the paragraph, every time, and say so when it cannot find one.
Side by side, by the job
| The job | CaseSharp | Lexis+ AU |
|---|---|---|
| Getting an account | Sign up yourself in a couple of minutes | Through your university login, while you are enrolled |
| Briefing a case for a tutorial | An IRAC brief with material facts, issue, rule, application and what was held, each part linked to its paragraph | Built for practitioner research and drafting rather than for producing a case brief |
| AGLC4 footnotes | Full form and short form with pinpoints, flagged for manual review when a reference cannot be parsed | Citation output is built around practitioner and reported-series formats |
| Checking the citing cases behind a scaffold | Open the cases from your notes and each one comes back with its citation graph, the cases that cite it ranked by influence and linked | A mature citator, reached as a separate step in the workflow |
| Opening the paragraph a claim came from | Every citation links to the paragraph it came from | Linked citations, generally resolved at the level of the case |
| Commentary and secondary material | Cases and legislation only, which is the trade | Decades of curated commentary and encyclopaedic material, which is a real advantage |
| Drafting inside Word | Not built. Copy or export instead | Yes, drafting assistance inside Microsoft Word and Outlook |
| Working on a phone between classes | Search, reader and Sharp all work on a phone | Designed around a desktop research session rather than a twenty minute gap |
| Sharing a set of cases with a study group | An authority packet shares as a single link | Secure storage designed for internal use inside an organisation |
| What happens when you graduate | Your account and everything you saved stay, and the free plan does not expire | Institutional access ends with your university login, usually within weeks |
The part nobody mentions until it happens
Institutional access is real and it is generous, and it ends. Your university logins stop working within weeks of finishing, and the databases you spent four years learning go with them. Your CaseSharp account does not: everything you saved stays, and the free plan does not expire. That is not a reason to stop using your library databases now. It is a reason to know which of your tools survives the transition.
Which one to open
- Open Lexis+ AU or Westlaw when
- You need commentary rather than cases. You need an authorised report because the assessment asks for one. You are writing something long enough that the depth of a practitioner platform pays for the time it takes to work in one. Or you are simply more fluent in it, which is a good enough reason on its own.
- Open CaseSharp when
- You have three cases to brief before Tuesday. You need to see which later cases have cited the authority in your scaffold since you wrote it. You have forty footnotes to format and it is late. You are on a train with your phone and twenty minutes. Or you want a plain-English way into an area you have not covered yet, with every claim opening the paragraph it came from.
- Use both when
- Which is most of the time, and costs you nothing while you are enrolled. Start in CaseSharp to work out which authorities matter and how they have been treated, then go to the library databases for the commentary and the authorised report.