Today’s Tip is less about legal research and more about the output of your research – often a research memo. There are some good general tips about writing and analysis at Catherine Best’s Legal Resarch site, and there are even sample memos like this one from UBC.

Some of the best advice I have heard comes from Wendy-Anne Berkenbosch, Research Partner at Davis LLP. When addressing articling students at the Edmonton Law Libraries Association Head Start Program, she says:

Provide your answer in a comprehensible and useable format:
– Introduction (what the memo is about);
– Brief Conclusion (if the memo is more than a few pages);
– Facts;
– Issues;
– Analysis (with subheadings for each issue);
– Conclusion and Recommendations;
– Sources Consulted.

and

Give yourself time to edit your work. If you read it again in a day or two, you will be better able to identify areas that need work.

Search terms
Search words
Search phrases
Keyword search

All these mean essentially the same thing.

Today’s tip: If you are searching for a phrase, remember to use thesaurus words and alternative phrasing.

For example, you would want to search both of

relief from forfeiture
relief against forfeiture

Thanks to Scott Matheson for the tip.

A frequent question in legal research is “what do judges say about [insert phrase here]”

Fortunately there are many excellent sources for answering this question, both with print tools and their electronic equivalents.

Some examples noted by Slaw include these posts:

• Words and Phrases Compared by Gary Rodrigues, November 3, 2008
• Are Words and Prhases Judicial Definition Sources Still Required by Shaunna Mireau, September 17, 2009

And for a great example of judicial definition in a case quote see:

• Barratry, Champetry, Maintenance, Oh My! by Simon Fodden, September 20, 2011

Today’s tip: If you are searching (electronically) for the distinction between two phrases and they contain the same word, search only for the common word.

Like all searching, the less you put “in” for search criteria, the more results you will get “out”.

Conveniently, this process could also result in lower client disbursement fees in most environments. The most common metered legal research tools calculate suggested disbursement prices based on activity (each search generates a fee) and narrowing your search by filtering the initial results is often at no additional suggested charge. Costs are theoretical ‘suggested retail prices’ of course since access is based on a contract.

As I was driving behind someone chucking garbage out their car window this morning I considered how little I know about the concept of citizen’s arrest. Here in Alberta, drivers who suspect that another vehicle is being operated by someone who is impaired may call 9-1-1, but I was pretty sure that the RCMP – I was driving on a highway at the time – would frown on 9-1-1 calls for littering.

The Tip part of this post is: sometimes Google is the fast path to a legal research question.

Back at my desk (not in the car where I am not allowed to use my mobile device with my hands while driving), I plugged citizen’s arrest into Google. The second hit led to a resource that has been discussed before in these legal research tips: a Library of Parliament Legislative Summary of Bill C-26: The Citizen’s Arrest and Self-defence Act. LegisINFO tells us that this bill is awaiting proclamation, but the background information in the summary tells me what the current law is regarding Citizen’s arrest.

And just for fun, here are some facts about littering in my jurisdiction.

Littering on highways in Alberta, is dealt with under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, Section 179(1):
179(1) No person shall dispose of waste on a highway except in a container placed for the purpose of collecting it.

Municipalities can adopt bylaws to address litter in Alberta.

Farmers, like my Dad, sometimes make their kids pick litter out of hay fields so the cows don’t eat garbage and get sick. This colours their adulthood and makes them think about citizen’s arrest when they spot littering drivers.

Ah science. It is pretty difficult in today’s world to have even a basic knowledge of what is happening outside your discipline given all the current awareness reading required just to stay on top of what is going on within your legal specialty.

Still, it is pretty important to try and keep up. World and current events are usually available with mainstream media. Legal information via Slaw.ca and current awareness services via your favourite law librarian. For scientific information, I recommend the Technology Review published by MIT. There are RSS feeds, mobile apps, and my preferred method of review – twitter feeds of article headlines.

A post by Library Boy reminded me to look to the Library of Parliament for their excellent publications.

The Library of Parliament offers a wide range of research publications that provide analysis to parliamentarians, parliamentary committees and parliamentary associations on current and emerging key issues, legislation and major public policy topics. The publications provide non-partisan, reliable and timely information on subjects that are relevant to parliamentary and constituency work.

Hat Tip to Library Boy.

Simon Fodden posted about the Supreme Court of Canada Justices and how they almost always agree last week. Great post for its intended commentary, AND, Simon gave a research tip that is worthy of its own post

Remember: when you need to get to the Supreme Court website and can’t recall the official URL, just use Slaw’s shortcut: http://thesupremes.ca or http://lessupremes.ca. Easy peasy.

Thanks for the reminder Simon.

Legal Research is fun. Stop laughing, I am not kidding! To prove it, I am sharing a Legal Research Jeopardy game that we use to reinforce some of our student training at Field Law.

This template came my way via web download some years ago from the public library world. Hat Tip to innovative public library staff everywhere. Choose File – Download to modify legal research jeopardy for your own use. Shared with Google Drive.

An Aesop fable suggests that we should make friends in prosperity if we would have their help in adversity. Thanks to Mike Doerksen, incoming Chair of the CBA Alberta, Research Lawywers Subsection (South) for today’s tip which came from the minutes of their round table wrap up session.

Joan described using the Search Headnotes function on Westlaw, rather than Full Text searching for cheaper and more efficient method of finding relevant U.S. cases.

Thanks to Mike for sharing the minutes. Thanks to Joan Bilsland, Bennett Jones for sharing wi her colleagues. Thanks to the CBA for facilitating research lawyer sharing through subsections, and for inviting law librarians to join these groups as special interest members.

Today’s tip is about watching what the government is doing. News releases by government bodies often contain information that is not yet posted to other sites. This was recently brought home to me by an Alberta Government news release about a future regulatory change as well as a Government of Canada news release about the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Especially with regard to regulatory changes in the provinces, news releases about issues may pre-date actual legislative authority for an action.

Check out the Canada News Centre or your provincial or territorial government website’s news page. Most jurisdictions offer RSS feeds for monitoring.

• Nicholas on Software Tools for Editing
• Jamie on Software Tools for Editing
• Steve Coughlan on ‘I Hope This E-Mail Finds You Well’
• Lyn on Womxn
• Celia Chandler on Gross Negligence

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