Priestley 11 · Usually third year
Civil Procedure for Australian law students
Civil Procedure, listed at some schools as Civil Dispute Resolution, is the subject that explains how everything else actually reaches a court. It is rules-heavy, jurisdiction-specific, and unusually practical, which is why it is often assessed with drafting tasks as well as problem questions.
What the subject covers
- Jurisdiction, and commencing proceedings in the right court
- Pleadings, particulars, and amendment
- Discovery, privilege in the procedural context, and subpoenas
- Interlocutory applications, including summary judgment and strike out
- Case management and the overriding purpose
- Alternative dispute resolution and pre-action requirements
- Costs, res judicata, issue estoppel and enforcement
Topic coverage varies between law schools and between jurisdictions. Your subject guide is the one that counts.
Cases you will meet in an Australian Civil Procedure course
Three decisions that turn up in Civil Procedure across Australian law schools. Some of them are English decisions that Australian courses still teach as core authority, so this is a list of what you will be taught rather than a list of Australian judgments. Treat it as a starting point rather than a reading list. Your course sets its own, and it is the one that counts.
Aon Risk Services Australia Ltd v Australian National University
(2009) 239 CLR 175
Case management, and the limits on amendment late in a proceeding.
Port of Melbourne Authority v Anshun Pty Ltd
(1981) 147 CLR 589
Anshun estoppel, and the finality of litigation.
Expense Reduction Analysts Group Pty Ltd v Armstrong Strategic Management and Marketing Pty Ltd
(2013) 250 CLR 303
Inadvertent disclosure in discovery, and the overriding purpose in practice.
How the subject is assessed
Expect a mixture: a problem question on a procedural dispute, sometimes a drafting exercise, and an exam that assumes you can find the rule in the relevant court rules quickly.
Using CaseSharp for Civil Procedure
Problem questions
Procedural answers turn on the rule first and the authority second. Filter by court and jurisdiction so you are reading decisions from the right rules regime.
Case notes
Procedural case notes usually track a long interlocutory history. A brief separates what was decided from how the matter got there.
AGLC4 essays
Court rules, practice notes and cases in one footnote block. The generator returns full form and short form with pinpoints and flags what it cannot parse.
Exam scaffolds
Scaffold by stage of a proceeding, with the rule and the leading authority side by side, then check the citing cases for the authority column.
CaseSharp is a research and study tool. It does not write your problem question answer or your research essay. Every substantive output carries a human-review notice, and where there is no authority to support an answer, Sharp says so instead of inventing a case to fill the gap.
Try it on a Civil Procedure question
Create a free account and run a Civil Procedure query like the one below, so you can see what comes back before you decide anything.
case management Aon Risk Services
73,000 audited Australian decisions, current to the end of April 2026.