Essential Web Links for Queensland Lawyers first went on-line on 22 June 1998. Its success and popularity quickly exceeded the modest ambitions with which it was first created.

A further "overhaul" was commenced in January 2004, again with a view to streamlining the site, making it easier to navigate and quicker to load.
 

Lex Scripta, as the name implies, is intended primarily as a guide to finding Leges Scriptæ - written legal reference resources - wherever they exist on the Internet. But it is much more than a catalogue or index of legal reference sites. Through the links found on this site, practising members of the legal profession, as well as legal academics and students, should be able to locate any web-based resource likely to be useful in the course of their daily work.

Almost all of the linked sites provide free resources. There are some very worthwhile (and also some less worthwhile) pay-sites available on the internet for legal practitioners. The object of Lex Scripta is not, however, to provide unpaid advertising for pay-sites. Its object, rather, is to provide links to the huge resource of free sites which exist on the Internet.

Lex Scripta is aimed specifically to assist legal research by members of the profession in Queensland. But here is much that should be useful for lawyers in other parts of Australia and overseas, for people engaged in academic legal research, and for the interested lay-person, to help them  find what they are looking for quickly and efficiently.

	The Laws of England may aptly enough be divided into two Kinds, viz. Lex Scripta, the written Law: and Lex non Scripta, the unwritten Law: For although (as shall be shewn hereafter) all the Laws of this Kingdom have some Monuments or Memorials thereof in Writing, yet all of them have not their Original in Writing; for some of those Laws have obtain'd their Force by immemorial Usage or Custom, and such Laws are properly call'd Leges non Scriptæ, or unwritten Laws or Customs.
	Sir Matthew Hale, 1609-1676 Lord Chief Justice of England The History of the Common Law of England, 1713
	The municipal law of England, or the rule of civil conduct prescribed to the inhabitants of this kingdom, may with sufficient propriety be divided into two kinds; the lex non scripta, the unwritten or common law; and the lex scripta, the written or statute law.
	Sir William Blackstone, 1723-1780 Vinerian Professor of Law at the University of Oxford, subsequently a Justice of the Court of King's Bench, and a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765-1770 Volume I, Introduction, §3
	For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law, or lex non scripta, and commences that of the statute law, or Lex Scripta.
	Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826 author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States of America letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

As at November 2000, Lex Scripta is averaging in excess of 1,000 "unique visitors" per week. Surprisingly, more than half of these are from non-Australian domains, including such places as Namibia, Qatar, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, and Macedonia, as well and 13 "unique visitors" from Brunei Darussalam, and 16 from the Cayman Islands.

The search engines most commonly used to find Lex Scripta are:

Yahoo
Google
Northern Light
Nine MSN

The most frequent direct referrals to Lex Scripta come from:

Bond University
University of Queensland
Macquarie University
AustLII
State Library of Queensland
Queensland Law Society
Butterworths
Australian Public Law

as well as the website of Mr Desmond Lane (a Melbourne barrister) called Connecting to the Internet, and the website of Mr Alan Davidson (a University of Queensland academic) called Legal Research - Navigating the Net.

Direct referrals to Lex Scripta are also frequently recorded from the intranets (internal websites) of major National law firms, and of the Queensland Police Service.
 

Anthony J. H. Morris is a barrister and Queen's Counsel, practising at the private bar in Brisbane.

He was born in 1960, and educated at Anglican Church Grammar School, Brisbane (matriculating in 1977), and the University of Queensland (graduating as a Bachelor of Laws, with Honours, in 1983).

During his University career, he worked part-time as a research assistant to Mr. Ian Callinan Q.C., now a Justice of the High Court of Australia.  He took his final year at University part-time, whilst working as Associate (personal assistant) to Justice Tony Fitzgerald, then a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia.

In 1983, he commenced practice at the private bar.  His career highlights have included appearances in a number of major High Court appeals, and in the last two cases which went from Queensland to the Privy Council in London.  He also continued his association with the University of Queensland, as a visiting lecturer in Civil Procedure, and tutor in Equity.

In 1992, he was appointed as a Queen's Counsel at the age of 32. This reportedly made him the youngest Q.C. in Australia's legal history, and the youngest Q.C. appointed in any Commonwealth country this century.

Outside his professional practice, he has served as a director of Queensland Investment Corporation, the body responsible for investing over $20 billion of public sector funds; as a member of the Advisory Council of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music; and as a Councillor of the Canine Control Council (Queensland).

This website - including all custom graphics used on this website - was created entirely by the Website Editor, mainly using resources freely available on the Internet. This was done without any training in HTML coding or other aspects of website design.