At the conclusion of court litigation, the judge typically provides written reasons for their decision in the form of a judgment.
The first format of this judgment is classified as an unreported judgment. This means that the written judgment has not yet been published in a law report. The second format is a law report. This means the case has been selected by editors for inclusion in a commercial publisher's law report series.
The below flowchart illustrates the potential lifecycle of the publishing of a judgment. Starting from when the judgment is first delivered in court and published in an unreported judgment format, through to when judgments are then selected to be reported in commercial law reports.
After a case is heard in court, a judge will make a written reason for their decision on the case, in the form of a final judgment. This is known as an unreported judgment. It is possible that a judgment will always remain in this format.
In most cases, unreported judgments are then made available online (on the court website, other legal information websites or subscription databases).
Editors of commercially published law reports review new judgments and make a decision about whether that judgment should be included in a law report series.
There are many law report series, and the case may be published in more than one.
In each jurisdiction, one law report series has the official approval of the judiciary. This is the authorised law report. However, not every case will be published in an authorised law report.
This means that a case may be published in multiple formats, such as one unreported citation, several law report citations and one authorised law report citation. This is known as parallel citations.