Skip to Main Content

Construction Law

A guide for learning and researching Construction Law.

Introduction


Welcome to the Construction Law guide.

This guide will help you with research for the following courses of study offered by the Melbourne Law School: 

Quick Links 

What's New

New books

 

New and improved websites

  • Australian Standards - under Standards, Codes & Contract Forms or Access via the catalogue (see record for information about preregistration and FileOpen plugin that is required for this resource).

Commentary

Building Contracts Australia

Commentary and precedents & Construction Law Handbook (Lexis Advance > All Publications)
Building and Construction Contracts in Australia (Dorter and Sharkey) Online commentary on construction contracts. To access, you need to login to the Westlaw Australia platform, and then go back to the Construction Law Research Guide and click on the link to Building and Construction Contracts in Australia (Dorter and Sharkey).
Construction Law Made Easy (Minter Ellison) Online encyclopaedia and 'constructionary' of construction law terms.
Lexis PSL Construction

Includes practice notes, checklists, precedents, cases, and access to certain FIDIC, JCT and other internationally-used forms.

iLaw

iLaw Website Update

--Potential disruption to services: Content migration 10pm Friday 13 October - 7am Saturday 14 October. If you have trouble accessing the database after this time, please re-set your password via the Database's Forgot Password link.--

Please Note: the iLaw platform has been upgraded - please read the updated login requirements.

To access iLaw you need to

  1. Go to iLaw via the catalogue, click link to go to iLaw
  2. once in iLaw, login with a iLaw registered account 
    • If you previously had an iLaw login you need to reset your password (when logging in to iLaw).
    • If you don't have an iLaw login you need to register for an iLaw account for an account (use your @student.unimelb.edu.au or @unimelb.edu.au email address).

Login issues: close the iLaw tab, delete your browsers cookies and clear the cache. Try logging in as above. If you still can’t login email Law-librarians@unimelb.edu.au.

 

Access to iLaw titles 

There is a two-step process to access i-law resources. You need to login twice (with unimelb login, then iLaw login) and then navigate (via the menu on the left hand side)  to the resources listed below. 

iLaw is the portal for the Informa suite of construction law products and includes: 

  • Julian Bailey’s text Construction Law 

  • Roger and Camilla ter Haar’s Remedies in Construction Law 

  • Nicholas Gould and Victoria Russell’s Construction Law and Management

  • Building Law Reports  

  • Construction Industry Law Letter

  • International Construction Law Review

The library is working with the vendor to try to provide direct link access to individual titles.

 

Journals & Cases

Australian Alternative Dispute Resolution Bulletin

Australian Construction Law Bulletin
Australian Construction Law Newsletter
Building and Construction Law Journal
Buildlaw
Building Dispute Practitioners Society Newsletter  check the catalogue for availability.
Building Law Reports (on iLaw - once you have clicked on the link, you will need register first with your unimelb.edu.au email address, then you can login to access content)
Construction Industry Law Letter  (on iLaw - once you have clicked on the link, you will need register first with your unimelb.edu.au email address, then you can login to access content)
Construction Law International (CLInt) (on Hein - searchable database with full text until most recent 2 years which is indexed with abstracts. For recent full text visit CLInt home page and follow Latest Issue and Previous Issues hyperlinks) 
Construction, Economics and Building (formerly Australasian Journal of Construction, Economics and Building) 
The Construction Lawyer
Construction Law Journal
International Construction Law Review (on iLaw - once you have clicked on the link, you will need register first with your unimelb.edu.au email address, then you can login to access content)
International Journal of Law in the Built Environment (since 2018, the journal has been renamed ‘Journal of Property, Planning and Environmental Law’ and it has lesser coverage of construction law)
Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction The University catalogue links out through to the American Society of Civil Engineers Journals articles available from 2009
Journal of the American College of Construction Lawyers via Westlaw  - (no direct link to this title, once in Westlaw, select Secondary Sources. Under the heading 'By Topic' select 'Construction Law' and then select 'Journal of the American College of Construction Lawyers'. Use the search bar at the top of the screen to search this journal. 
Journal of the Canadian College of Construction Lawyers via Westlaw and Westlaw Next Canada (no direct link to this title, when you have connected to Westlaw, search for the journal using the journal-title in the search box at the top of the screen)
Lloyds Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly (on iLaw - once you have clicked on the link, you will need register first with your unimelb.edu.au email address, then you can login to access content)
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Management, Procurement and Law

Law Firm Publications

Professional Bodies

American College of Construction Lawyers                                       Journal access, information for members, general and events information.
Building Dispute Practitioners Society, Australia  Event information, news, links/resources and member services.
Canadian College of Construction Law   Information about the college, industry news and articles.
Society of Construction Law, Australia   News, member services, resources and information.
Society of Construction Law, Hong Kong  

Industry papers, information for members, general and events information.

Society of Construction Law, New Zealand  News, member services, presentation papers, SCL rules.
Society of Construction Law, North America

News, member services, resources and information.
Society of Construction Law, United Kingdom  Papers, events, news, member services and information. Those studying or teaching at academic institutions can access papers for free. This webpage has more information about access for students and teachers. 
Technology and Construction Court, England and Wales  Court forms, daily list and judgments.

Standards, Codes & Contract Forms

Texts and eBooks

i-law


i-law has eBook versions of:

 Construction Law by Julian Bailey

   

Remedies in Construction Law by Roger and Camilla ter Haar

Construction Law and Management by Keith Pickavance

Construction Contract Variations by Michael Sergeant and Max Wieliczko

Once you have clicked on the link to the i-law publication, you will need to login with your unimelb.edu.au email address. For instructions on how to do this, go to the Commentary page of this guide. 

General Texts

Project Procurement

Standard Form Contracts

International Projects

Specific Contracting Issues (payment, delay, variations etc)

Associated Issues (disputes, insurance, sustainability, technology etc)

Other Links

Expert Determination Chambers Selection of published construction law papers from 2009 onwards. 
Infrastructure Australia Infrastructure Australia publication links.

International Building Quality Centre publications

The IBQC is hosted by the University of Canberra. Its focus is on ‘best practice’ in building regulatory systems.
MTECC Papers Publications and papers from the leading specialist counsel at the Victorian Bar dealing with technology, engineering and construction law.
Translex Principles The TransLex-Principles are a systematic online-collection of principles and rules of transnational commercial law. 

Twitter

Twitter


Referencing and citing

  Referencing & Citing


The Australian Guide to Legal Citation, 4th Edition is the referencing style for subjects in the Melbourne Law School. 

For assistance with referencing in AGLC and Zotero reference management software, please contact Law-librarians@unimelb.edu.au

Contact Us

Guide Author 

This Research Guide is created and maintained by the Law Library, Melbourne Law School.

Please contact us at Law-librarians@unimelb.edu.au with corrections, suggestions or comments about the Guide.