Your first search

The fastest way to get value from CourtAid is a plain-English search. You don't need Boolean operators or exact citations — describe the legal issue and let semantic search find relevant documents.

Step 1 — Set your jurisdiction

Before searching, make sure you're on the right country:

1. Check the flag in the sidebar or header

2. Open Filters and confirm Jurisdiction and Court match your matter

See Changing countries and Using filters.

Step 2 — Open Search

Click Search in the sidebar (marked Free). You'll see the search input, mode toggle, and filter panel.

Search page with Smart mode selected

Step 3 — Write a natural-language query

In Smart mode, describe what you're looking for as you would to a colleague:

employer liability for psychiatric injury from workplace bullying
whether silence can amount to misrepresentation in contract
recent unfair dismissal cases involving casual employees

Tips:

• Name the legal issue, not just a broad topic — "constructive dismissal due to role change" beats "employment"

• Include jurisdiction context in the query if you haven't set filters — e.g. "NSW duty of care in schools"

• Use Boolean mode if you know exact words that must appear — see Semantic search

Step 4 — Narrow with filters (optional)

Open the filter panel to restrict results before or after searching:

• Document Type — Judgements, Legislation, or both

• Jurisdiction — e.g. Victoria, Federal

• Court — e.g. Supreme Court of Victoria

• Categories — legal topic areas

Filters panel

Step 5 — Review results

Each result shows a title, date, jurisdiction, summary blurb, and action buttons:

Action	Use it to…
Title (click)	Open Chat PDF for this document
Summary	Read the full AI-generated case summary
Chat PDF	Ask questions about this specific document
Save	Add the case to a project
Original	Open the published source on the court or legislation website

Search result card

Step 6 — Explore further

Once you have a few promising results:

• Switch to Map view to see how cases cite each other — see Citation map

• Click Cites or Cited by tags on a result to explore precedent relationships

• Save key authorities to a project as you go

• Switch to Chat mode if you want a synthesised answer instead of a list

Search vs Chat — which first?

Start with Search if…	Start with Chat if…
You want to browse and compare many cases	You want a direct answer to a specific question
You're building a reading list	You need synthesis across multiple sources
You don't want to use a query	You're happy to use one of your AI queries

Search is free and unlimited. Chat uses your query allowance — see Plans, trials & query limits.

Related

• Semantic search (Smart & Boolean)

• Document summaries

• Common use cases