All Our Research Tips
Hat Tip to David Whelan via a tweet that led me to LawAtlas:
LawAtlasSM is a gateway to key laws aimed at improving our health or access to health care. Visitors can use the Interactive Law Maps pages to generate maps and tables highlighting selected features of the law as it exists today or has changed over time.
Though the interactive law maps are only for the USA, the principle of looking a law in a visual way is worthy of a research tip.
I don’t know about you, but I have a zillion (only a slight exaggeration) passwords. There have been some great tips on the technology side of this blog and at Slaw.ca for using password generators and technology assisted password management.
Today’s Tip: use the same userid and password formula for both Westlaw and Quicklaw. It is not your banking information [don’t use your banking password for anything else], you aren’t going to change it frequently, and if you do change one, change both. Keep it simple
As a side, I keep a private Outlook contact with my research and social media login and passwords – not the actual passwords but a reminder of the formula I used to create them. The contact is not labeled “passwords”, but it is available on my desktop and my connected to the office mobile devices for those moments when I have a brain blank.
Survey results are converging in my world as useful sources of information. In looking at some information for an upcoming presentation, Google informed me about some published surveys that contained excellent background information. For an example of survey results that you might find interesting, check out Green Target’s 2012 In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey.
Survey data can tell you what people in groups think or believe. Survey results can be qualitative or quantitative. Survey results can help to illustrate themes. Survey data can provide a benchmark.
Survey questions can give you ideas as well. The Canadian Association of Law Libraraies/L’Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit (CALL/ACBD) periodically carries out a salary survey of law library staff working in Canada. Non-members of CALL/ACBD are encouraged to complete the survey. If you are working in a law library in Canada you are welcome to complete the survey. Any information you provide is confidential and your personal information cannot be identified.
English: https://surveys.dal.ca/opinio/s?s=CALLACBDSalarySurvey
Francais: https://surveys.dal.ca/opinio/s?s=CALLACBDSalarySurvey&lang=fr_CA
A couple of years ago I shared a tip for putting the Rules of Court on a mobile device. A couple of days ago there was a notice about an amendment to the Alberta Rules of Court – the rules linked in the example post.
Thanks to persistent URLs, the links in my 2011 post are still relevant. Because adding content to mobile devices is usually managed by an individual, I am using Today’s Tip to remind you that legislation (including Rules – which are really regulations) changes.
Archive or delete that old copy and update the legislation on your mobile device.
The best legal research output comments on how to apply the law to the facts and reaches a conclusion on how the client should be advised to move forward. Today’s Tip is a reminder to read about clients in order to wrap your legal research in the context of the present day story.
Events that require intervention by lawyers do not take place in a vacuum. They are point in time, point in history, point in geography, point in life issues. Better advice is provided with context. Where can you find this context?
I had the pleasure of attending the American Association of Law Libraries conference this week. Despite having 20 years invested in my profession, I was a first time attendee. One of my key take aways from attending this conference is that I should have done it sooner.
Meeting colleagues from AALL has given me new connections to reach out to in the USA, validated that issues facing the legal industry and law libraries are universal, reinforced that my methods of practice are sound (and sometimes innovative which was great news), and expanded the number of people in the universe who will remember the name of my law firm.
Local, provincial, and national connections are important. International connections are relevant too, as is the learning that comes along with conference attendance. Attending AALL, especially in addition to the Canadian Association of Law Libraries conference, will make 2013/14 an innovative year for my library.
Go ahead, expand your horizons.
Oh legislation. How I love the odd and interesting and esoteric nature of delving into your secrets! Today’s Tip is a reminder that legislation passed by elected members can be amended by others if they are given the authority to do so.
I have an example from Alberta, but I have seen this phenomenon in British Columbia legislation as well:
The Fatal Accidents Act at section 8 says:
Damages for bereavement
8(1) In this section,
(a) “child” means a son or daughter;
(b) “parent” means a mother or father.
(2) If an action is brought under this Act, the court, without reference to any other damages that may be awarded and without evidence of damage, shall award damages for grief and loss of the guidance, care and companionship of the deceased person of
(a) subject to subsection (3), $75 000 to the spouse or adult interdependent partner of the deceased person,
(b) $75 000 to the parent or parents of the deceased person to be divided equally if the action is brought for the benefit of both parents, and
(c) $45 000 to each child of the deceased person.
(3) The court shall not award damages under subsection (2)(a) to the spouse or adult interdependent partner if the spouse or adult interdependent partner was living separate and apart from the deceased person at the time of death.
(5) A cause of action conferred on a person by subsection (2) does not, on the death of that person, survive for the benefit of the person’s estate.
RSA 2000 cF‑8 s8;2002 cA‑4.5 s36;2002 c17 s2;2010 c6 s3
The Act also says:
Regulations
10 The Lieutenant Governor in Council may by regulation
(a) change the amounts of damages that may be awarded under section 8(2),
(b) prescribe the effective date of such change, and
(c) provide that such change applies only to deceased persons who die on or after a prescribed date.
1994 c16 s6;1996 c28 s17
There IS a Fatal Accidents Regulation, Alta. Reg. 32/2013 that adjusts the amounts of berevement damages prescribed by the act.
Because the regulation changes the act, and this is thankfully abnormal, a researcher may miss these connections. The connection will be made, but the reference is not (yet) in the Table of Public Statutes. Tables of Public Statutes always have a currency date which should be reviewed, as should the regulation making power of an act that you are using for legal research.
If this confuses you, talk to a law librarian…
CanLII has added “See Also” references! No, I am not talking about references within CanLII to other things on CanLII, like the growing Commentary section on the site. In this case, I mean See Also references to case comments linked to outside sources as in the image below for Sumner v PCL Constructors Inc., 2011 ABCA 326 (CanLII),
http://canlii.ca/t/fnws8.
Commercial services like Westlaw Canada and LexisNexis Quicklaw offer excellent lists of case commentary in their noting up services. This is a new feature for CanLII. I like the way that it links out to the web.
Every year on April 25th, my daughter Dominique comments that it is the “perfect date”. She is referring to the movie Miss Congeniality, and if you haven’t seen it, there is a YouTube clip. Makes me giggle every time.
Dates are often important for litigation research. Occasionally you may need a perpetual calendar source to quickly identify what day of the week a date in the past fell on.
I like the perpetual calendar in the binding ends of the Canadian Almanac and Directory print version. There are lovely tools and apps at timeanddate.com that do the trick as well. I like that the calendar shows holidays by country. It is good for litigation AND vacation planning.
The library team at Field Law uses the word blink all the time. We use it in the context of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell; i.e. What is your Blink on a starting point for this legal research question?
To back up our blink, we also document common questions and processes within a Library Procedures Manual. We also publish how to guides on our Intranet for common research tasks: How do we note up a case; how do we search for judicial consideration of a statute section; how do we check for coming in to force dates; what are the amounts under the cap for insurance; what is the judgment interest rate…
Today’s Tip is about documenting your legal research processes. Like David and Garry’s advice about Office Manuals, think about creating and maintaining documentation about your research process. It is easy to do for each project by adding a “Sources Consulted” heading at the end of a research memo that explains where you looked and how. It is also easy to make a spot where you consistently save information about how you do things.
Hat Tip to students of the Head Start program, who help keep legal research process top of mind for me every June.
