Research into lecture notetaking has traditionally focussed on its twin functions of encoding and storing lecture information, and its value has been judged in terms of performance on specially designed tests. Rarely have the notes taken by (L1) students been systematically investigated as objects of interest. Since the 1980s. some researchers have begun to examine L2 students' notes, but these, like the L1 studies, have often been based on unreal situations lacking in content and task meaningfulness. With the exception of Dunkel's work, the literature has not offered a cross-cultural focus on the lecture notetaking of groups of L1 and L2 students. In the current study, L1 and L2 student notes from a Commercial Law lecture were examined to determine firstly what, if any, differences were observable in the recording of the hierarchical structure of the lecture. It was found that L2 students recorded significantly fewer of these top-level elements. Future research may usefully be directed towards subject-specific and cross-disciplinary explorations of L1 and L2 notetaking in conjunction with authentic lectures.