Legal Research

CANADIAN SITES
All About Information
BCCLS Tutorials
Best's Guide to Canadian Legal Research
Bora Laskin Law Library Alphabetical Listing of Electronic Journals
Canadian National Class Action Database
eLegal Canton
Hieros Gamos List of Legal and Law Related Journals
Jurist Canada
Lancaster House Labour Law Online
Lang Michener Supreme Court Law
Law Society of Upper Canada - Great Library page
Legal Periodicals Online
Legal Scholarship Network
Megadox
Ontario Civil Litigation Resource Centre
PracticePro Limitations Online Companion
SLAW
Statistics Canada
Ted Tjaden's Doing Legal Research in Canada
Working Group on Lawyers and Real Estate

AMERICAN SITES
FindLaw
Findlaw Academic Law Reviews and Journals
Law Engine
Litilaw: published articles for litigators
Citation Machine

INTERNATIONAL SITES
Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations

CANADIAN SITES

All About Information
This is a new legal blog about privacy and access to information, protection of confidential business information and the law of production, authored by Dan Michaluk, a Toronto-based lawyer who works at Hicks Morley. The blog covers subjects such as freedom of information, privacy, e-discovery, e-mail, and records management. There is some good, substantial material here, including case reports and links to ABA litigation podcasts on electronic evidence and other timely topics. http://danmichaluk.wordpress.com

BCCLS Tutorials
The British Columbia Courthouse Library Society (BCCLS) has recently launched a new series of legal research video tutorials, available for viewing on their website and on YouTube. While some segments pertain specifically to the BCCLS system, others are of general interest. Especially helpful is the segment called Researching Legislation, Part 1, Tracing Legislation back. This eight minute segment uses both online and print sources to clearly explain how to research the origins and history of a federal statute section.  Other segments include researching legislative intent and finding precedents. These are nice refreshers for experienced researchers, and a good introduction for new ones.  Type bccourthouselibrary in the YouTube search box, or  http://www.bccls.bc.ca/cms/index.cfm?group_id=86163 in your browser.

Best's Guide to Canadian Legal Research
Catherine Best is a research lawyer with the Vancouver law firm of Campney & Murphy, and an Adjunct Professor with the Faculty of Law at U.B.C., with whose support this site has been developed. The main page of the site is divided into four parts: Research Essentials, Electronic Research, Statutory Research and Other Jurisdictions. Each of these sections is logically broken down into various sub-headings, each of which can be clicked on for a step by step explanation of the topic. Statutory Research is divided into provinces and some have guides on how to do legislative research in that jurisdiction. As far as manual research goes, the Research Essentials section offers effective strategies for Canadian legal research, including finding and using secondary sources, finding and analyzing cases and updating your research. This site is a great place to go to learn as much or as little as you want - you can easily look up a specific research question, or browse for more wide-ranging information. http://LegalResearch.org

Bora Laskin Law Library Alphabetical Listing of Electronic Journals
The popular Bora Laskin Law Library Alphabetical Listing of Electronic Journals has been converted into an easily searchable database of full text law journals available on Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw, WestlaweCarswell, Quicklaw, University of Toronto Electronic Resources or the Internet. As stated on the home page, the list includes direct links to full-text law journals. Wherever possible holdings information (e.g., from 1992) has been included. Some databases include only selected coverage. Although Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw and Quicklaw are pay-per-use services, these services are available either free or for a small fee here at the MLA Library. Items marked (Full text through U of T Library Resources) are available only to the University of Toronto Community.
http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/journals/search.asp

Canadian National Class Action Database
As noted by Simon Chester at www.slaw.ca, the Canadian Bar Association has launched its National Class Action Database, a repository for information and documents about new class actions across Canada.  It is intended that the public, counsel, and courts need only look to one source, at no cost, for this information.  The National Class Action Database is a voluntary initiative and as such does not claim to provide a comprehensive listing of all class action lawsuits currently underway in Canada. It includes brief descriptors of the class action proceedings, namely, the filing date, style of cause, description of the class, subject-matter of the action, and status of the case.  A search engine allows users to identify quickly the existence of class action proceedings with overlapping class members or subject matter. Users can also browse class action proceedings, obtain useful information and download relevant documents.  All class actions will be listed annually in chronological order beginning with the most recent.  The jurisdiction where each proceeding is filed will be indicated on the list. http://www.cba.org/ClassActions/main/gate/index/

eLegal Canton
David Canton’s blog is a well-considered survey of current issues relating to online law and information. A representative sample of the archives for April 2006 contains new comments and previously published reprints from his London Free Press articles on such timely topics as the printing of credit/debit card numbers on receipts, the importance of erasing hard drives on used equipment, and an interesting concept called "continuous partial attention".  The blog includes references and links to works by information and privacy law experts Michael Geist and David Fraser, and provides valuable links to other useful sites and blogs, for example the Ontario Privacy Commissioner’s fact sheet on Secure Destruction of Personal Information.  It can be accessed at http://www.canton.elegal.ca.  

Hieros Gamos List of Legal and Law Related Journals
This site provides an alphabetical listing and direct links to law journals, periodicals and newsletters on the Web.  Some of the links are to the full-text online version of the journal; others are to subscription information only.  The coverage is primarily U.S., although some other sources are included as well. www.hg.org/journals.html.

Jurist Canada
This site bills itself as "The Legal Education Network" and is based out of the University of Toronto.  Jurist Canada is the Canadian service of the American-based Jurist, directed from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. It provides "a clearinghouse of academically-authored and other quality-controlled Canadian legal resources provided for the convenience of Canadian law teachers, law students, lawyers and members of the public." The Canadian service is hosted by the Bora Laskin Law Library at the University of Toronto, and co-edited by Professor Michael Geist at the University of Ottawa.

If all this sounds too academic for the everyday working lawyer, think again. This site was one of the ones most often mentioned in your responses to our Internet Questionnaire. Jurist Canada provides a wealth of links and information for every area of practice, including up-to-date Canadian legal news, latest decisions from the Supreme and Federal Courts and the Ontario Court of Appeal, and CBC newscasts, just to name a few. There are links to law school webcasts, as well as book reviews, journal article listings, and international materials such as latest news and decisions of the International Court of Justice. The site can be found at http://jurist.law.utoronto.ca

Lancaster House Labour Law Online
Located in Toronto, this company has been publishing books, loose-leafs and newsletters on labour and employment law for over 30 years. Now on-line, their web site provides a great deal of free information for anyone involved in this area of practice, especially with regard to disciplinary issues. Look for recent Supreme Court cases, a directory of arbitrators, arbitration decisions and current news updates. Also available is a paid e-mail subscription and e-mail alert service to their traditional newsletters. http://www.lancasterhouse.com

Law Society of Upper Canada - Great Library page
A fantastic web site for legal research, and also for incidental bits of practical information.  In addition to the previously available union catalogue of all court house libraries in the system (Advocat), this site now provides some new legal research tools. One is a current awareness service, consisting of recent case law digests written by 2 LSUC staff lawyers, and then archived in a collection. Another new development under the heading of Legal Research is the feature "Legal Periodicals Online", which gives a list of what’s available for free online, complete with links. A third new item of interest is a column called Reference Desk, which details some of the weird and wonderful queries received by the library staff.  But best of all, see the pre and post-judgment interest rates, right there on the screen - no clicking anywhere, and no more paging through the Ontario Gazette, the OR’s, the Rules of Civil Procedure or the other print sources for this bit of information. And the rates for the last 15 years are only one click away. The Great Library has now added an e-reference service, so this remains a site to keep an eye on.  http://library.lsuc.on.ca/GL/home.htm

Legal Scholarship Network
Billing itself as “the premier scholarly legal network on the Internet,” LSN is part of the Social Sciences Research Network.  Abstracts and full-text articles can be easily searched for and found and then downloaded in PDF format. www.ssrn.com/lsn/index.htm 

Megadox
We don’t usually highlight commercial websites, but this one comes recommended by one of our members as an efficient and reliable Canadian source of forms and precedents from Canada, the USA, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.  Interestingly, Canadian Legal Forms have their own category under the general heading of Legal Forms, right between Boilerplate Agreement Clauses and Commercial Real Estate Forms. Most forms can be had for about 25.00, and the site also includes a set of free downloadable boilerplate clauses in MS Word format, not specific to any country or region. http://www.megadox.com/

Legal Periodicals Online --Great Library, LSUC 
As described on the site itself, this page provides annotated lists of law journals and other legal periodicals available on the Internet. The lists include periodicals that have full text online and those that only provide abstracts or tables of contents but are available in print in the Great Library's periodical collection. Especially helpful is the Alphabetical Listing of All Journals and Periodicals.  You can also search the tables of contents from more than 750 law reviews and scholarly legal publications. http://library.lsuc.on.ca/GL/research_periodicals.htm

Ontario Civil Litigation Resource Centre
Designed to be very user-friendly, the Litigation Resource Centre has been developed and is maintained by our own Middlesex lawyers Ken Peacocke and Stephanie Gower. There are no arcane search strategies or symbols to remember, just point and click on the information you want. This service provides an easily accessible collection of memoranda, facta, tables and pleading precedents, especially in the area of Ontario civil litigation. Although there is a moderate annual subscription fee, a great deal of information is available free of charge, for example directories of legal agents, experts, mediators and others. You can also purchase individual memos on a variety of topics.  www.litigationresource.com

PracticePro Limitations Online Companion
For those of you who are fans of the Butterworths limitations manuals, LPIC offers a helpful online companion.  The site provides a good review of the new legislation, including an article by Graeme Mew, as well as a printer friendly version Transition Rules Chart.  There is also a chart of Notice Periods for Commonly Encountered Actions in Ontario. www.practicePRO.ca/practice/limitation.asp

AMERICAN SITES

FindLaw
A US-based web directory of Internet legal information for lawyers, students, businesses and the public. It provides summaries of various areas of law, and access by subject index, law schools, consultants, law firms, etc. Also a good source of US case law and legislation for those without subscriptions to the more structured on-line legal services like Westlaw or Lexis. www.findlaw.com/law

Findlaw for students: Academic Law Reviews and Journals
According to the LibraryCo description, this site lists and provides links to the homepages of a wide range of law journals, with particular emphasis on the United States.  While the site is searchable, there is also a helpful list of journals by subject.  Each individual title has a hyperlink to the web page for the journal, whether or not the full text is available on-line. 
http://stu.findlaw.com/journals/

Law Engine
Another US web directory for law on the Internet, claiming to provide "the best on-line law sources in an easy, single-page format!" Provides searching and links to a variety of information, including US case law and legislation, and a very useful source of the ever-popular Delaware State Code. The Law Engine is a good alternate source of American material where in offices and libraries where print versions are not available. http://www.thelawengine.com/

Litilaw: published articles for litigators
Journal articles are often hard to find online.  They’re either not available electronically, or you need a paid subscription.  That’s why litilaw is such a nice surprise, providing pdf files of selected articles or linking to them from actual credible US law reviews and journals or CLE materials.  According to the website guidelines, Articles must have been presented as part of a legal continuing legal presentation (CLE), in a legal journal, or be of similar quality, be of current interest to litigators and related legal professionals, and published in the last two years. Detailed topics are listed under three main headings: Procedural law, Substantive Law, and Other.  While the material is American, Canadian lawyers will be interested in the articles on law practice management, forensic computer investigations, and alternative dispute resolution. This site is produced by Lexbe.com, a commercial web-based case analysis and litigation management system.  While some of the links don’t work, and some of the articles are less than substantive i.e “legal alerts” from law firms, this site is still worth checking out at http://litilaw.lexbe.com/

Citation Machine
This web tool was created by U.S. educator David Warlick and is part of the Landmarks for Schools web site for teachers. Since 1995, Mr. Warlick has been the owner and principal consultant of The Landmark Project, a professional development and web design firm in Raleigh North Carolina.  This wonderful resource allows you to translate any type of raw bibliographic data into an authoritative APA or MLA style citation with one click of the mouse. It includes everything from web pages to an article from an

INTERNATIONAL SITES

Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations 
As described on its first page, this web-based service allows you to search for the meaning of abbreviations for English language legal publications, from the British Isles, the Commonwealth and the United States, including those covering international and comparative law. A selection of major foreign language law publications is also included. The database mainly covers law reports and law periodicals, but some legislative publications and major textbooks are also included.  The coverage includes Canadian materials as well.   If you have a legal abbreviation you can find out what it stands for, or you can learn how to abbreviate the name of a law publication to create a recognized legal citation.  This handy index can be searched either from abbreviation to title or from title to abbreviation, and can also be searched using only a part of an abbreviation. http://www.legalabbrevs.cardiff.ac.uk