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Legal research online

The explosion of online caselaw and statute databases means that legal research can’t be done with just a pile of books anymore. Here’s what you need to know about how to conduct legal research in the electronic age.

By Janice Mucalov

Unless the client has written a blank cheque, every lawyer needs to know something about doing cost-effective legal research — not least because the consequences of not properly researching a point of law can be devastating, for both you and your client.

"Law students have had free access to Quicklaw for so long that they don’t use it systematically." Cyndi Murphy, Director of Research, Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales, Halifax

Expertise in legal research is becoming an essential part of the skill set required to practise competently — especially for lawyers in small firms and sole practices who lack access to juniors or articling students to do the research for them. But unless you’re a recent graduate, chances are you never received training in the vast array of online research vehicles available today. And even if you are, there are plenty of tips and tricks you might not have picked up in class. No matter your level of expertise, your research skills could always use a tune-up.

You need an in-depth, yet easy-to-follow strategy for doing research, some helpful hints for using electronic resources like CANLII, Quicklaw and WestlaweCarswell, and a handy list of good free legal Websites. Happily, we’ve done all the legwork for you already, and here’s the result: a guide to the major online research services and to legal research generally.

Books v. computers

Before we get started, though, there’s a caveat — while the computer has revolutionized legal research, and many lawyers now disdain the hardcover research volumes of their youth, online research isn’t necessarily better than thumbing through books the old-fashioned way.

Free at last! A guide to free research outlets like CANLII and Google Free Websites are a huge boon if you don’t subscribe to Quicklaw or WestlaweCarswell, and for keeping costs down if you do. But two points are worth remembering when browsing. First, question the validity of the free Website, says Cyndi Murphy, director of research and library services at Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales in Halifax. "Something from Butterworths or a university law library may be more reliable than material from a site hosted by an unknown group." Federal and provincial governments are uploading more and more documents online; if it’s an authoritative government body site, you can probably rely on it. Second, "just because the material is on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s current and up-to-date," warns Vancouver research lawyer Catherine Best. This is particularly true for statute law, she says. Make sure you check the date of the site and how often it’s maintained. Still, one free legal site that every lawyer should bookmark is www.canlii.org. Launched in 2000 by the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CANLII) — a non-profit organization created by the Federation of Law Societies and operated by the law and computer science research team at the Université de Montreal — it’s Canada’s main source of current free access to statutes and cases, explains co-founder Daniel Poulin. "Because it’s free, it invites exploration," he says. "It’s easy to look up cases and explore." Also, its uniform search interface means that the search techniques for each government collection are the same. CANLII’s goal is to post all Canadian cases since 1990. That will cover off most research projects, which Poulin says generally just look at the past five years. For now, however, the depth of coverage varies among provinces. Saskatchewan caselaw only dates back to 2001, but Ontario Court of Appeal cases extend as far back as 1994. Murphy notes that the CANLII site gets "a lot of links which you can’t find in print or electronically elsewhere," such as Nova Scotia’s provincial court decisions. Then there are general Websites like Google (www.google.com), recommended by both Best and Murphy. "Its database of indexed pages is bigger than other general search engines," observes Best. "Also, its ranking method ensures that higher quality sites appear first." Google is particularly useful for finding: • Websites of organizations and information on a company or individual; • background information — e.g., policy documents, white papers, industry and factual information (for example, information on iron smelting to help you understand a particular fact situation); and • the name of a newsworthy case (when you can recall some details, but just can’t remember the name). Tips for using CANLII 1. Use it! Because it’s free, it can save you money, even if you’re charged a flat rate by your commercial provider (new rates are based on your previous year’s usage). 2. Try an "Advanced Search." To search within two or more provinces, click this option at the bottom of the main page. Then, using your "Control" key, highlight the provinces you want to search. 3. Employ the "With Hits" button. Found in parentheses at the end of each case title, this button highlights your search terms in the case and enables you to link to Supreme Court of Canada cases and some statutes referred to therein. 4. Utilize the blue "Note Up" button beside the case title. For Supreme Court of Canada cases and some federal statutes, the "Note Up" button links you to other cases that have considered the subject case or statute. Tips for using Google 1. Click on the "Pages from Canada" box. Found at the top of the Google page, this limits your search to Canadian material. 2. Discover the grey "Cached" word (at the end of each entry). Google can retrieve documents the way they looked when they were indexed. This means you can find articles that have now been deleted from the host Website. Clicking on "Cached" also highlights your key search words in the document, so that you can determine immediately if the article is relevant.

"The biggest misconception today is that all research can be done electronically," says Cyndi Murphy, director of research and library services at Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales in Halifax. She recalls working with a second-year law student who had never even entered her school’s library — all her research had been done electronically from home.

"For years now, there’s been free access to Quicklaw at law schools, so more and more students are relying on this," Murphy says. "Since they’re not paying for it, their idea is to browse, and they don’t follow a systematic approach. This has negative implications when they join a law firm, where time online isn’t free anymore and they have to do their research more efficiently."

According to Université de Montreal law professor Daniel Poulin, co-founder of the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CANLII), new students are more proficient at computer research today. But because they’re given access to free commercial databases in university, they think "more is better," and they don’t bring the same analytical skills to their research that traditional training imparted.

"There’s been a paradigm shift," agrees Catherine Best, a research lawyer with Boughton in Vancouver and probably the leading Canadian authority on legal research. "Electronic research requires you to be very narrow in your approach — for example, you start with distinctive keywords. On the other hand, with traditional print research, you start with broad subject headings and are forced to do some legal analysis first."

To thoroughly research a point of law, you may need to use both print and electronic sources. As Best notes, there are always sources that one method retrieves that the other may not.

Plan your research strategy

So now you’re ready to start, using both the computer and print materials. But before logging on or cracking a book, map out your conceptual framework first, says Best.

"There’s no one way that’s right for every research question," she insists. "It depends on how much you know. If you don’t know a lot about the particular area, going to a secondary source [like a textbook] can be very helpful. If you already know of some good keywords, then a narrow pinpoint search can be useful. You might even start your research at both ends."

In general, asking yourself certain key questions will point you in the right direction. Murphy suggests the following:

• What is the fact situation? "Remember that legal research is only a methodology for finding an answer to a client’s question," she says.
• What is the area of law you’re really dealing with? That may not be as easy to answer correctly as you think.
• What are the keywords and phrases relating to the issue at hand? Create and rank a thorough list before you log on.
• Are there any leading cases you should look at, and are there statutes that you should consider?

Do some homework first

If you’re unfamiliar with this area of law, start by reading a legal text, Best and Murphy both advise. If there’s no text on your topic, refer to a legal encyclopedia like the Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (CED, published in both a Western and Ontario edition) or Halsbury’s Laws of England (the English equivalent to the CED).

A good secondary source can give you an overview of the topic, help you define the issues, provide keywords for your Internet research, point out related issues you wouldn’t otherwise think of, and immediately tell you what the leading cases are.

"In ten minutes of looking at a textbook on your topic, you can gain a tremendous amount of information that you can’t get without spending hours reading and analyzing cases," says Best. "People who’ve spent their lives devoted to the topic have done all the work for you."

Be prepared to do this part of your research with hardcover books and bound reports: at this point, very little secondary source material related to Canadian law is available electronically, Best advises.

If texts and encyclopedias are too general or aren’t helpful, look for periodical articles or CLE seminar papers, which are usually well footnoted (CBA CLE papers, the Canadian Bar Review and National magazine can be helpful in this regard). Again, however, you won’t find a large collection online. If you subscribe to Quicklaw or WestlaweCarswell, check to see what periodicals and journals they carry.

The most common way to find relevant periodical articles is to look in a periodicals index, many of which can be found online (Quicklaw, for example, has the Index to Canadian Legal Literature, starting from 1987). Indexes list various periodical articles by topic and indicate which periodical title has the article you want.

Narrow the issues

Now that you have a general understanding of the law relating to your question, you need to narrow your research and look for relevant caselaw. The meaning of a particular word or phrase may be key. The most comprehensive Canadian words and phrases collection, says Best, is Carswell’s Words & Phrases (usually shelved with the Canadian Abridgment).

For online case research, you must choose your keywords carefully. What are good synonyms for the keywords you’re interested in? "Computer research is a very literal business," cautions Best. "If you type in a particular word, that’s what comes up. If a different form of the word was used in a judgment, you won’t get that case."

Digests of Canadian cases are good tools for finding relevant cases, she adds. The print Canadian Abridgment by Carswell includes the Canadian Case Digests, which is available electronically as the Canadian Abridgment Digests through LawSource on WestlaweCarswell.

Finally, make sure to check any relevant statutes (your secondary research will often alert you to them). Annotated statutes with footnotes and references to cases can be useful in unearthing cases that have considered a particular provision, but these are usually published in print only.

At this point, weigh the cases you’ve found — if you haven’t already — and discard the least relevant.

Note up the cases

The main Canadian print tool for making your research current is the Canadian Case Citations portion of the Canadian Abridgment. Both Quicklaw and WestlaweCarswell also have comprehensive electronic citators for noting up Canadian cases — QuickCite and KeyCite, respectively.

But there are significant differences between these two citators, notes Best. For example, except for Supreme Court of Canada and Privy Council decisions, the QuickCite tool only covers Canadian cases starting from 1940, while KeyCite goes back to 1867 and includes judicial consideration of decisions from other jurisdictions. See www.legalresearch.org for Best’s chart on the differences between the two citators.

Also, don’t blindly rely on the coloured QuickCite or KeyCite "case treatment flags" (found beside a case’s style of cause) for the judicial treatment of a case. In testing the two citators, Best found that QuickCite stated that a particular case hadn’t been followed, while KeyCite said the opposite. To update important cases, you may want to use both citators.

At this point, your research should be complete and current, and you should now be able to formulate your opinion and answer your client’s question.

The 2 towers Everything you need to know about online legal research giants Quicklaw and WestlaweCarswell. The two main commercial online providers of Canadian legal information are Quicklaw and WestlaweCarswell. Quicklaw is offered by LexisNexis Canada Inc., the Canadian arm of the international LexisNexis group. Launched 30 years ago, Quicklaw has captured the lion’s share of the Canadian legal market. The LexisNexis group also offers a Canadian collection through www.lexis.com, but it’s much smaller and less comprehensive than Quicklaw and is intended primarily for researchers in the U.K., U.S. and elsewhere who want to research Canadian law. Because Quicklaw was the only game in town for a long time, many lawyers are comfortable with it — an advantage in its own right. Apart from this, Quicklaw’s main strength is its breadth of content, says Alan Dingle, VP of marketing and communications with LexisNexis Canada. For example, Quicklaw carries some caselaw going back to the early 1800s. It also picks up administrative decisions from 167 boards and tribunals across the country (WestlaweCarswell doesn’t). On the other hand, WestlaweCarswell, which came online in November 2002 (as an enhancement of the older eCarswell version), is putting up some stiff competition for Quicklaw. It sells five separate products — the general LawSource product, plus four specialty collections covering criminal, family, insolvency and securities law. Of course, lawyers practising in these four areas find these collections very attractive. But WestlaweCarswell’s main strength, says Michael Silverstein, product development manager for legal online services, is the integration of its primary source content with the Canadian Abridgment (known online as the Canadian Abridgment Digests) and CED. As research lawyer and librarian Cyndi Murphy points out, the Canadian Abridgment was for years "considered the major research tool when doing print research." Like their print counterparts, topics in the Canadian Abridgment Digests and CED are organized by hierarchy. This means you can start your search with a broad subject matter like "torts," then move on to consecutively narrower topics like "trespass," "trespass to person" and "assault and battery." (Quicklaw doesn’t have hierarchical topic searching.) While you pay to access Quicklaw and WestlaweCarswell from your office, they’re available free of charge in various courthouse libraries across the country, by agreement with sponsoring law societies and bar associations.

Tips for using Quicklaw 1. Access the "Find a Case by Citation" shortcut. To quickly retrieve a case for which you know the full citation, just follow this link instead of logging on the normal way for a longer research session. 2. Note the new case treatment indicators. Added in April, the red stop sign, green diamond or other coloured symbol before the case title immediately tells you if the case has been appealed or followed. Clicking on the symbol links you to the relevant cases. (But note the caution about citator flags in the main article.) 3. Understand the "Point-in-Time" search feature for legislation. For example, criminal and tax lawyers may want to know what statutory provision was in effect on the date of the offence. Found in the statutory materials section, this feature provides you with that information. For instant help, phone 1-800-387-0899. Some operators are legally trained or are librarians.

Tips for using WestlaweCarswell 1. Access the "KeyCiteCanada" shortcut. Located at the top of the page, this link enables you to quickly pull up a case or statute where you know the citation. 2. Use the statute citator. WestlaweCarswell is the only Canadian electronic service to have one. To find cases that cite a particular statutory provision, pull up your provision, then hit the "KC Citing Ref" tab in the left grey frame. 3. Take advantage of "WestClip." This saves your search and requests WestlaweCarswell to update your search as new cases come in. In the left grey column, click on the blue "WestClip" button beside the "Print All Options" pull-down menu. You can be notified by e-mail of new documents by changing the default notification setting. For instant help, call 1-800-387-5164. Research lawyers are available 24/7 — Canadian lawyers staff the phones from 6:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. EST.

Better research

Finally, here are some general tips for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your online legal research. See the sidebars for more detailed information and tips for specific legal research services.

• Learn Boolean searching. Boolean searching essentially consists of using three logical operators — "or", "and", and "not" — so, for example, you can search for cases containing the words automobile or vehicle, but not truck. Boolean searching also allows you to search for words within close proximity of each other. "The best online searchers know how to do Boolean searching outside of ‘fill-in-the-blank’ fields," says Murphy.
• Take the training sessions offered. Both Quicklaw and WestlaweCarswell offer free training by phone, so you can learn Boolean searching and how to best use your particular service.
• Understand how your service works. For example, with Quicklaw, the default ranking of items is by relevance — documents that have the most hits for your search terms come up first (except for statutes). But with WestlaweCarswell, the default ranking directs the highest-level court cases to appear first (for example, Supreme Court of Canada cases). 

Janice Mucalov is a lawyer and writer based in Vancouver. Her article "Advocates for the devastated," about personal injury lawyers, appeared in our May 2003 issue.

Photo: Marvin Moore

english Pour une recherche juridique branchée La recherche juridique n’est plus la même depuis l’arrivée sur le marché des banques de données informatiques. Quelques trucs s’adressant aux jeunes et aux vieux habitués pour vous aider à naviguer dans cette nouvelle ère. 1. Gardez vos vieux réflexes Même si l’ordinateur a révolutionné l’art d’effectuer de la recherche juridique, vos vieux principes appris à l’université demeurent plus qu’utiles. « La plus grande erreur est de croire que toute la recherche peut se faire de façon informatique », affirme Cyndi Murphy, directrice de la recherche chez Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales à Halifax. La preuve en serait certains étudiants qui, habitués à un accès gratuit aux banques de données lorsqu’ils fréquentent la faculté, auraient par la suite des difficultés à séparer le bon grain de l’ivraie. « Nous faisons face à un changement de paradigme », de commenter Catherine Best, une avocate spécialisée en recherche du cabinet Boughton de Vancouver. « La recherche informatisée requiert que vous resserriez votre approche — vous débutez avec des mots-clés distinctifs — alors que la recherche traditionnelle exige que vous commenciez avec un sujet large qui vous pousse à faire une analyse juridique dès les premières étapes. » En somme, ces deux types de recherche ont leur raison d’exister. 2. Planifiez votre stratégie de recherche Avant d’ouvrir un livre ou votre ordinateur, vous devez penser au cadre conceptuel de votre problème à résoudre. De façon générale, Me Best vous recommande de vous poser les questions suivantes : • Quels sont les faits? « Souvenez-vous que la recherche juridique ne constitue qu’une méthodologie pour trouver une réponse à la question d’un client. » • À quel domaine du droit pouvez-vous relier votre problème? Attention, ce n’est pas toujours une question à laquelle il est facile de répondre. • Quels sont les mots-clés et les phrases relatives au problème posé? Faites-vous une liste par priorités avant de vous brancher. • Existe-t-il des jugements d’importance ou certaines lois auxquelles vous devez jeter un coup d’œil avant de débuter? 3. Faites vos devoirs Si vous n’êtes pas familier avec un secteur du droit, consultez un ouvrage général sur ce dernier, vous recommandent Me Best et Me Murphy. Une bonne source secondaire peut vous fournir un aperçu du sujet, vous aider à définir les questions, vous procurer les mots-clés pour votre recherche Internet et vous faire prendre conscience de certaines questions auxquelles vous n’avez jamais pensé en plus de vous indiquer quels sont les jugements incontournables. « En passant seulement 10 minutes à lire un texte qui porte sur votre sujet, vous pouvez amasser une foule d’informations que vous n’auriez pu obtenir même en passant des heures à analyser des décisions », ajoute Me Best. « Les gens qui ont dédié toute leur vie à étudier ce sujet ont déjà fait tout le travail pour vous. » 4. Précisez vos questions Maintenant que vous avez une idée générale du droit entourant votre question, vous devez préciser votre recherche et vous attarder à trouver la jurisprudence pertinente. Pour une recherche juridique en ligne, vous devez choisir vos mots-clés de façon prudente. Pensez aussi aux synonymes des mots-clés qui vous intéressent. Certains recueils peuvent vous être utiles pour trouver ces mots-clés. En common law, nos experts suggèrent de jeter un coup d’œil au Canadian Case Digests disponible par l’intermédiaire de Lawsource de WestlaweCarswell. En droit civil, les bons vieux Annuaires de jurisprudence pourraient s’avérer d’une grande utilité. De plus, n’oubliez pas de consulter les diverses lois annotées que l’on retrouve encore majoritairement en format papier. Vous pouvez maintenant faire l’inventaire de vos trouvailles et écarter ce qui n’est pas pertinent. 5. Assurez-vous du suivi Pour connaître la façon dont une décision choisie a été abordée par les tribunaux subséquents, vos meilleurs alliés seront les banques QuickCite de Quicklaw et KeyCite de WestlaweCarswell. Malheureusement, ces outils ne sont pas encore exhaustifs en ce qui concerne le droit civil et les fonctions qu’elles offrent ne sont pas tout à fait disponibles chez leurs équivalents québécois. Toutefois, posez le nom de votre jugement dans la case « jurisprudence citée » d’Azimut de Soquij ou de REJB et vous vous sortirez bien d’affaire. N’oubliez pas non plus de vous assurer que votre jurisprudence sélectionnée n’a pas été portée en appel. Avec toutes ces suggestions, ne nous reste plus qu’à vous convaincre que vous êtes capables! Nos adresses pour vous faciliter la vie: • Consultez CANLII à www.canlii.org, un projet de la Fédération des ordres professionnels de juristes du Canada géré par une équipe de l’Université de Montréal. Vous y trouverez jugements et législations de toutes les provinces. Vérifiez toutefois jusqu’à quand remontet chacune des banques de données car le contenu varie d’une province à l’autre. • Ne négligez pas www.google.ca, vous pourriez y faire d’intéressantes découvertes, particulièrement en matière de politiques ou directives gouvernementales. • Prévalez-vous aussi de www.rejb.editionsyvonblais.com offert, pour l’instant, gratuitement à tous les membres du Barreau du Québec. • Jetez un coup d’œil à www.obiter2.ca. Les principaux signets Internet du juriste québécois, une initiative de Me Marco Rivard constituent un répertoire de conseils et d’hyperliens très utiles que votre pratique se situe ou non au Québec.