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A Redesigned Search Experience

Classic Search

Our Classic search now supports both Boolean operators and plain natural language queries so you can enter keywords or full phrases like “elements of fraudulent misrepresentation in contract law”

Type ahead suggestions

View title suggestions* as you type and simply click the suggestion to search the title.

*Note: we are looking to expand the type ahead suggestions to more fields such as Citations, Coram and Parties in future

Search operator tips

Easily access Boolean search operator tips to refine your search.

Search filters

Filter your search by Content Type, Jurisdiction or Month Range.

Enhanced Search Relevance Algorithm

Our core search algorithm has been enhanced to be faster and more relevant.

It detects whether your searched term is likely to appear in Catchwords, Facts or Holdings and prioritises results that contains matches in that category before checking the Body content. Other parameters are also considered in the ranking of the results, such as:

• Case treatment – cases with referring and following treatments are boosted. This boosting is disabled if there is a later case that overrules this case.
• Court hierarchy – cases are ranked by highest court first, where applicable
• Content type – cases with Singapore Law Reports are boosted over unreported judgments.

Results and Filters

Results Listing Page

Results now load gradually as you scroll. Click the ‘Back to Top’ button on the bottom left of the page to quickly return to the top of the results.

Listing cards

Hits interaction bar

Get an overview of where your searched terms appear in the document and click through the coloured pills to view up to three lines of content where the text matches.

Case treatment types

The ‘traffic light’ indicators lend visual cues to how later cases have treated this case (instant judgment). For example, if the principal of law established in the instant judgment has been applied in a subsequent judgment, that would indicate a positive ‘Followed’ treatment which can be identified in green.

Preview documents

Click ‘Preview’ to get a sneak peek of the resource before clicking in. You can drag the edges to resize the preview window to view more details at once.

Quickly scroll to different sections of the document by clicking the preview tabs.

• Details – key information about the document such as Decision Date, Coram, Jurisdiction etc.
• Text Match – extracts from the document that contain your searched term
• Facts – reported facts of the case, this section may be AI-generated for certain unreported Judgments (see LawNet AI summaries)
• Holdings – reported holdings of the case, this section may be AI-generated for certain unreported Judgments (see LawNet AI summaries)
• Content – full content of the document

Filters

Search within results

Narrow down your search by entering more search terms in the ‘Search within results’ bar.

Results-level filters

Further refine your search by filtering the results by Singapore Courts or Content Type (Law Reports & Regulatory Decisions).

Sort

Sort your search results by relevance, latest decision date first or oldest decision date first.

Document Details

Upon opening a document, your searched term(s) will be highlighted in blue.

Details and information

Key details about the document will appear under the Details section at the top of the document page. Other information can be found under the ‘Info’ tab on the right-side panel.

Case treatment for ‘Referring’ cases

Get a quick overview of how later cases citing this case (the instant judgment) have treated it. Note that this case treatment bar below the citation does not include case treatment of earlier cases that are referred to in the instant judgment.

Navigate within the document

Document Tabs

Use the tabs at the top header to bring you to specific sections of the document.

Footnotes

Click footnote numbers to view the associated footnotes.

‘Back to Top’ Button

Click the ‘Back to Top’ button on the bottom left of the page to quickly return to the top of the document.

Document actions

Download and print documents

Click the download icon on the top right to download the document.

Click on the three dots beside the download icon to access the Print function. You can choose to print or ‘Save as PDF’ through this function.

Hyperlinks within content

Where possible, related documents are hyperlinked within the content. Click the link to open the document in a new tab.

References

Card view

View references related to the document in the right-side panel:

• Case references
  • Referring – later cases referring to this case
  • Referred to – earlier cases cited in this case
• Litigation references – pleading or taxation documents submitted for this case
• Legislation references – legislation referred to in this case
• Other references – includes content such as books or regulatory decisions

Table view

Alternatively, view references in a table view that allows you to sort case references by decision date or title.

LawNet AI summaries

Generated Summaries are available for unreported judgements and can be identified by a purple border in the Preview component or Document details content. Note that LawNet excludes summaries below a threshold level of perceived factual accuracy.

There are 2 trust and safety features available:

1 – Low Confidence paragraphs
Highlights entire paragraphs in yellow to indicate that caution should be applied as the generated paragraph might not be as well substantiated with the source document text.

2 – Unmatched Entities
Highlights specific terms in the summary in pink that cannot be found in the source document. For example, this could be an individual’s name spelled in initials instead of their full name.

LawNet AI Q&A-Based Search (Beta)

LawNet AI Search is powered by IMDA’s GPT-Legal Q&A which utilises a large language model (LLM) and advanced retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to respond to research queries. It is an experimental model that is fine-tuned for contract law queries, although it will attempt to answer any query you ask it.

In response to each query, it will provide a generated answer and a list of retrieved sources from LawNet’s repository of Singapore cases as well as Singapore legislation.

Craft your query

Your query can be expressed in natural language such as “What are the elements of fraudulent misrepresentation?” View our quick guide at lawnet.com/research.

View AI-generated response

Search steps

The model recognises any citations and legislation names (entities) in your query. Based on the identified entities and keywords in your query, the model uses semantic similarity to identify relevant sources. View the steps taken by the model in the right-side panel.

Learn how our model works

Get a better understanding of how the model works by clicking ‘Learn how our model works’ in the disclaimer banner.

Numbered footnotes

Click the source number within the response to view the relevant extract used from that source. Please note that the model is still in beta and hence, some sections of the generated response may not have an attributed source.

Leave feedback

Rate the generated response with a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. Feel free to add any comments/feedback about the response by typing in the comment box.

Sources tab

Source extracts

View the list of sources and the relevant extract(s) determined to be relevant to your query. Click on the title to open the relevant document in a new page to read up further.

Sort

Sources are sorted by relevance by default, click the sort button to sort the sources by date.

Legislation Module (Beta)

Access the Legislation module from the navigation menu on the left-hand side of the page.

Based on LawNet’s reference trace data, the ‘Companies Act 1976’ is the most cited legislation across our Judgments and Books. Hence, we are launching with the Companies Act (as of 4 March 2024) first, more legislation will be added progressively.

Legislation Details Page

The legislation content is located in the middle of the page, with a table of contents available on the left-side panel and a list of references on the right-side panel.

Table of contents

View the legislations’ table of contents on the left-side panel. Click on a section to scroll to the specific section in the content. You may collapse or expand the left-side panel by clicking the table of contents icon for a cleaner reading experience.

Reference trace – Judgements

It is important to note that while the current version of the Companies Act 1967 available in LawNet 4.0 is as of 4 March 2024, the Judgment references span across all versions of the Companies Act.

Grouped by section

Case references are grouped by section in the right-side panel. Selecting a section from the table of contents with applicable case references will automatically expand the dropdown. You may collapse or expand the right-side panel by clicking ‘All References’ for a cleaner reading experience.

Reference card

Judgments that are available on LawNet are hyperlinked (identifiable by blue text). Click the hyperlinked citation to open the Judgment in a new tab.

How to Access LawNet 4.0?

Facing issues viewing the full features of LawNet 4.0? You may need to link and migrate your existing LawNet.sg account. Simply head to www.lawnet.com/migrate to find out how.

Feedback & Support

We are constantly working to improve LawNet as a platform. If you have face any issues or feedback, do not hesitate to drop us an email to [email protected].