Checklist · Defamation & Media Law
Defamation claim assessment checklist for an aggrieved person: publication capture, serious harm, limitation and concerns notice timing
First-instruction checklist for a person who says they have been defamed: capture and first-publication date, standing of a corporation, serious harm evidence, likely defences, the 1-year limitation period and its extensions, and the concerns notice timetable.
- Kind
- Checklist. Steps or checks to work through and tick off.
- Where it applies
- New South Wales, Australia
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 18 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 18 October 2026 against the 5 authorities it cites, for New South Wales and Australia.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use at the first meeting with a person or excluded corporation who believes they have been defamed, before deciding whether to give a concerns notice. It records the facts the concerns notice, the limitation calculation and any later serious harm application depend on.
Used for these tasks
Each task page says how far AI may help with the task and what the lawyer must review.
How AI may be used
AI may organise the capture, the dates and the harm evidence into the checklist; the lawyer identifies the imputations, assesses serious harm and defences, and confirms the limitation date.
AI may
- Record each publication’s URL, capture time, author, platform and visible audience metrics from the client’s screenshots and links
- List the evidence of harm the client has provided (messages, lost work, changed behaviour of others) with dates and sources
- Calculate candidate limitation dates from the first-publication dates, flagged for the lawyer to confirm
AI must not
- Must not formulate the imputations of concern
- Must not assess whether serious harm is established or whether a defence is likely to succeed
- Must not rely on platform dates or metrics without the capture showing them
- Must not contact the publisher, poster or platform
The lawyer checks
- The first-publication date is proved by the capture or other evidence, and the single publication rule has been applied to later republications
- The limitation date, any 56-day extension and the need for a s 56A application are calculated and diarised
- A corporate client is an excluded corporation and can show likely serious financial loss
- The serious harm evidence is specific enough to particularise in the concerns notice
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
More in Defamation & Media Law
- Concerns notice under the uniform Defamation Acts (with UK letter-of-claim and NZ variants)
- Response to a concerns notice: further particulars notice, or letter declining to make an offer to make amends
- Deed of settlement and release for a defamation dispute, with agreed correction, apology and removal terms
- Offer to make amends in response to a concerns notice
- Pre-publication legal review checklist (including AI-generated text, images and quotes)
- Correction, clarification or apology for publication, with placement and prominence schedule
- Takedown demand for AI-generated deepfake or synthetic content (to poster or platform)
- Complaint notice to a digital intermediary (s 31A accessible complaints mechanism) with UK and US variants
- Newsroom and publisher generative AI and synthetic media policy
All precedents for Defamation & Media Law · Tasks and AI use in this area