About

Everyone should have quick and easy access to the latest court judgments.  Your knowledge and understanding of the relevant law will be enriched.  It also means that the law itself is enriched when sound principles are applied to real situations.  This saves time and money. The rule of law is promoted and ultimately we will develop a better society that will benefit everyone.

GilesFiles monitors the latest judgments daily in specific topics.  Reportable judgments are selected for analysis and landmark judgments are identified. GilesFiles provides the essence of the judgment and its significance. GilesFiles also categorises judgments by topics, courts, judges, legislation, sectors and parties. You can also search for keywords or phrases. GilesFiles provides the full reference and a link to each selected judgment.   In addition, GilesFiles provides a headnote, comment, relevant extracts from legislation,  media summary, important quotations from the judgment, any comment by thought leaders, related judgments and page references to the recommended textbook.

After a case is heard in court the judge delivers a written judgment and the parties to the dispute receive it.  But it is also provided electronically to SAFLII who then post it on their website. The judges usually indicate whether the judgment is important enough to be ‘reported’.  This is an indication to the legal publishers to consider including it in their official reports.  Those reports are sold to users who are interested in the law, more particularly legal practitioners such as academics, attorneys, advocates and judges.  But it usually takes a few months for those unreported judgments to be reported in the official law reports.

Graham Giles was inspired in 1982 to create a system to keep up to date with labour law developments.  He founded GilesFiles and a hard-copy service was provided until 1996.  Eventually, a website was created which now contains a considerable amount of valuable content.  Graham is still a practising attorney and teaches law.  He has more than 50 years of teaching and practical experience since being admitted to practice as an attorney in 1967.

Who subscribes to GilesFiles and why

Legal practitioners, attorneys and advocates

• Stay fully updated and aware of how the law is developing. You cannot risk the embarrassment of not knowing the latest law when the judge, your clients or opponents find out before you do.
• Avoid the risk of ignorance of the latest law.
• Provide sound advice based on all relevant information and win cases.
• Achieve more billable hours in a day.
• Enhance your return on investment from other subscriptions to reports and journals.

Academics, researchers and students

• Know and understand the latest law.
• Trace the latest or landmark judgments.

What is GilesFiles?

GilesFiles provides information on tap. Easily access the information you need from anywhere, including your office, home or even in court or during an arbitration.  With an Internet connection get information “just in time” rather than “just in case”.  GilesFiles is all about aggregating and indexing work law.

GilesFiles indexes various law resources so that subscribers are able to search for the desired information through the use of keywords and operators. By indexing, we mean that Graham Giles reads each law resource and categorises, defines and references it in a listing in GilesFiles.

He adds his more than 50 years of law knowledge and experience to each listing in GilesFiles. For example, a decision may contain the word “drunk” many times, but actually be about unfair dismissal. GilesFiles will pick this up and categorise the resource correctly.

GilesFiles does not store or necessarily provide access to all the actual resources – it simply tells you that it exists and whether it is relevant to you. GilesFiles is not a database of actual judgments and awards.