My colleague Jennifer Merchant, Library Assistant for Field Law in the Calgary office gets credit for this tip. It is really more the beginning of a memo of research results, rather than a tip, but I thought you might find it useful. Jennifer was looking for some background information on a private company. Here is the beginning of her result:

You asked for background information on [insert private company name here]. I used the following resources in my search:

• Google (general)
• Google News
• Canadian Business and Current Affairs Complete (business/news database)
• Canadian Newsstand (news database)
• Canadian Periodicals (news database)
• Canadian Reference Centre (news database)

Using the sources above with a search for a private company name as a phrase yields plenty of results. This is true even when the company itself has no website.

Today’s Tip: Don’t take Wikipedia at face value

I nearly wrote “The King is dead. Long live the King.” as the title of this post, but Wikipedia is definitely NOT dead. It is a very useful resource for a quick look at a topic, name, date, person, or fact that you intend to verify.

Legal research requires work. Use crowd sourced data just like you would any other source – not as the sole point of information. Verify the black letter statement of the law in a legal encyclopedia by reading and noting up authorities referenced in the footnotes. Verify the content and point of view in a journal article or CLE paper by reading and noting up authorities referenced in the footnotes. Verify the content and point of view of a textbook or loose-leaf service by reading and noting up authorities referenced in the footnotes. I am sure you recognize the theme. “Trust, but verify.”

“Trust, but verify” is a quote attributed to Ronald Regan at Wikipedia. Thinkexsist.com attributes “Trust, but verify” to American writer Damon Runyon. My old copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (published in 1980) doesn’t contain this quote so I leave it to the curious readers among you to verify.

Thanks to my colleague Ed for the idea for this post.

Today’s Tip: Look for regulations.

Most legal researchers are cognizant that they should check for a statute on their topic. My tip today is a reminder to also look for regulatory, policy, and other delegated legisaltion.

Some regulation reminders:

• Regulation making power is always spelled out in a section of the statute.
• The authority to make a regulation does not necessarily mean that a regulation exists.
• Some regulations have the authority to change the wording of an act.
• Regualtions come into force on the day they are filed unless they state otherwise in a ciming into force section

Thanks to Dino for the question that inspired this Tip.

Today’s Tip: think of the word “document” as a verb.

With legal research, it is a frequent event to have someone ask how you found an answer. This often happens when an answer is “there is no reported case law on that topic”. Especially when the search result is nothing, it is really important to plot your research path and be prepared to share exactly what the path was.

My method for this is to provide research results in memo form, even for short simple tasks. Research memos should have a detailed sources consulted section that includes granular details like the database or template and search language used.

The best thing about documenting your search path this way is the ability to reuse or build on your prior work.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment.

Today’s Tip: plan how to conduct your research before you attempt to find anything

At the CALL/ACBD Conference last week I listened to Ted Tjaden (read him at Slaw) and Andrew Terrett talk about legal project management. My take away from their excellent presentation was that project management is applying a disciplined approach to your (or group) work.

Applying a disciplined approach to a legal research question will help you focus so that your strategy allows you to gather just enough information and the right information to answer the problem. Although it is not described as research project management, following the strategy described at Catherine Best’s Legal Research site.

Happy planning.

If you also follow our sister site you will know that I am in Calgary at the CALL Conference. This visit offers an opportunity to catch up with legal information vendors in the conferences exhibit hall as well as through vendor demonstrations of their latest innovations.

Maritime Law Book is showing a beautifully redesigned website for their excellent case law collection. The front page is nice and clean and allows easy access to the National Reporter System Key Numbers or a topical search. Search templates are also surfaced on the front page with familiar visual tools to access them.

The conference is also offering up fodder for future research tips. Stay tuned.

Today’s Tip: don’t forget to search images

I am sure that every lawyer reading Slaw Tips has had to build a personal injury quantum memorandum. Even if it was during articling, you will remember trying to identify a dollar figure to compensate for an injury using case law digests. For those of us who took the minimum science credits required, there is a great tool that was profiled recently by MIT’s Technology Review in an article titled .

Healthline’s Body Maps tool is a search engine to get visual clues for bits of anatomy. You can browse with a person shaped map. It has an extensive search engine with a lookup suggestion drop down so you don’t even have to spell properly. If you are researching injuries to the musculocutaneous nerve, it is a great idea to know that this is part of the arm.

What is your favourite source for searching pictures (anatomy related or otherwise)?

I love my iPad. One reason is for its ability to carry heavy things for me, like extra novels when I travel, my CDs, and my copy of the Rules of Court.

No, sorry there is no Rules of Court app. Here are the steps to get a long pdf that is available for public download on to your tablet.

1. Make sure you have a pdf reader (like iBooks, iAnnotate, or Kobo)
2. In your browser, navigate to the public pdf. I used the Alberta Rules link at http://www.qp.alberta.ca/documents/rules2010/Rules_vol_1.pdf
3. Once the full pdf has loaded into your browser, hover over the top of the menu bar until the “Open In” bar appears.
4. Select which of your eReader apps you would like to Save the document in.

That’s it. Rules to travel.

This weeks tip: Sometimes you just have to use microfilm.

On Tuesday, I enjoyed the hospitality of the Edmonton Public Library from 10:30 in the morning until they shut the doors at 9:00 p.m. Thank you to all the lovely staff at EPL, and those who hosted my colleagues at the Calgary Public Library as well. Thank you also for hanging on to those microfilm reader/printers.

If you are looking for a couple of years worth of historical advertisements, even if you are just looking in one issue a week, it takes a lot of time. Advertisements occassionally (not too often thank heavens) have value for a legal research project. Advertisements are not indexed in online services for newspapers, like Informart or Canadian Newsstand – those sources contain articles but not ads.

There is a newspaper service called Press Display that has the newspapers as they appeared in print. It is an excellent service that carries major newspapers from around the world. Unfortunately, if you are looking for ads older than 3 months you are out of luck.

So, suck it up princes (I said to myself) and take your rolls of coins over to the microfile reader/printer at the public library and get the information you need. So what if it isn’t on the internet, it still exists.

Todays Tip: Read the screen

There is an adage that states familiarity breeds contempt. I am sure, like me, many of you have been to a training session for a web-delivered search tool that you have used for years. It is very hard not to get into a pattern where you use a tool the same way over and over, without exploring the possibilities that evolve with enhancements to a product.

Todays tip is a gentle reminder to read the screen. Look it over. Pay attention, not just to the function that you are using, but to all the possibilities.

You may get lucky and see something new, like this enhancement to Westlaw Canada that I noticed yesterday with the paper tablet symbol:

Carswell’s Legal Memoranda & Points of Law Icons will appear in those cases, legislative sections, and passages of commentaries that have been discussed in one or more memos. Remember to read product alerts too.

• 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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