I'm fortunate enough in my firm to practice with several other lawyers in the same research practice group. We've learned over the years the value of collaboration, which usually takes the form of either "open door" discussions or our monthly meetings where we share news, frustrations, current work and workload issues. In hopes these discussions may be of interest to other researchers who often practice in isolation, I'm summarizing some of the issues dealt with recently (below) and welcome anyone to contact me directly if you wish to follow up in more detail:

1. Commercial Databases – tips and gripes
   - On a monthly basis, we share idiosyncrasies, problems and new resources, largely on the "new Quicklaw", and Westlaw eCarswell; one of us then takes on the task of contacting the vendor with respect to the problems that need fixing
   - examples of recent problems:

   * we've discovered that some of the databases on the new QL have a narrower coverage or scope than the databases with the same name on the old QL;ie. don't assume you know what's in a QL database by its name;

   * WeC: There have been problems printing out paragraphs from the C.E.D.

2. Knowledge Management
   - Our firm, like many others, is pursuing its KM strategy, which the research group is interested in, and which will be integral to its implementation
3. Costs of Electronic Research
   - There are issues over this, as some lawyers have a perception that electronic research is too expensive and desire to contain the costs; it does not occur on most files and seems connected to particular lawyers; a decision was made to "educate" those lawyers, and the firm in general, about the need for electronic research on most issues, but also ensure other resources are also consulted – quality product is the goal.
4. Students
   - Over the last few years our group has become more involved in the review process for articling and summer students. We usually meet as a group to evaluate the students. Because we often answer research questions from students and review their work (memoranda, etc.) we are able to comment on their work individually and as they fit into the group as a whole. By comparing comments, we can sometimes see a trend in the student's research skills, habits, or lack thereof. For example, some students are not familiar to any of us, in which case we follow up to determine whether there are legitimate reasons for this. The students submit a detailed Research Plan with their memos, which give us a good indication of their skills and quality of work. Our comments are part of the review process and much valued by the Student Committee.
5. Current Research, Non-Billable Projects and Workload
   These discussions are extremely helpful, and sometimes we have found we are working
   on similar issues, and can pick each other's brains. The non-billable work may involve preparing papers for journals or conferences, or being part of a legal text with other firm lawyers. It is always useful to know what your colleagues are working on and building a specialty in, and we can refer work to each other, eg. one of us specializes in damages, another in limitations law, and another in corporate issues such as director and officers' liability.

Daily routine in the trenches of an active legal research practice affords little time for exploring technological innovations in the legal field. Alas, I am therefore often left in the dark even after reading posts on Slaw about such technology. I've confessed my confusion and ignorance to Simon F, and he has responded by encouraging me to give a different perspective on issues that surround legal research and technology.

I acknowledge that much of the research I do can be, and often is, conducted by searching online legal databases, as well as internet sites and search engines. In particular, the availability of law from other jurisdictions, both case law and legislation, has increased remarkably over the past ten years, improving the quality of our own research product in Canada. It also wasn't that long ago that the librarians in our firm and elsewhere were debating whether legal publishers would continue to develop CD-ROM products or would convert to internet-based applications.

However, the urgency that often accompanies requests for research, and the demands of the billable hour combined with the many non-billable tasks that end up in the research group, leave little time for the interesting, but not immediately applicable, intricacies of emerging technology. The majority of my day is still spent reading, thinking, and writing, rather than in front of my computer.

It may be of interest to those of you who do not practice research law, that the textbooks and loose leaf editions, and yes, even the hard copy of the encyclopedias and Words & Phrases, are still used on a daily basis. Browsing and musing are still essential research skills that extend one's searching and analysis outside of the box, compared to the narrowness of online searching. We need to understand the scope and limitations of the technological tools available to us, but the focus, at least in my practice, remains on the substantive law and its application to the factual circumstances and needs of the client, who is paying for the research and resulting product, whether it's a factum, brief, opinion letter or memorandum of law.

I would be interested to know if other research lawyers' experiences are similar to mine, in relation to keeping current with technological innovations. I enjoy reading the posts on Slaw immensely and thank those who contribute regularly. I suspect many of us are kindred spirits as we bemoan the shrinking hard copy libraries, public and private, while at the same time enjoy the efficiencies that the digital world offers. Without Slaw, I would be even more hopelessly behind in what's happening in technology and law. Thank you, all, for keeping the rest of us informed!

I've finally made the time for training on Summation, software used by our Litigation Support group. It's extremely useful for document management of large litigation files, but I've had all of my facta and briefs of argument, leave to appeal applications, etc. into Summation and the search abilities are great. I can search fields of my choosing, by boolean or otherwise. For my precedent facta and briefs, I've chosen Author, Document Type (brief, facta,etc), Court Level, Plaintiff, Defendant, Issues and Category. I can't wait to showcase it to one of the litigation practice groups.

I don't know if anyone else uses this software and would be interested in others' experience with Summation and creative uses for it.

Is anyone using Westlawecarswell's Litigator? If so, is it proving useful? The databank of precedent facta seems to be a useful additional tool on one's desktop, as well as the annotated Rules of most jurisdictions across Canada including Federal and the SCC.

For those of you who followed the appointment process of Justice Rothstein to the Supreme Court of Canada, you might also be interested in reading his first Reasons for Judgment in the SCC, in Goodis v. Ontario, 2006 SCC 31. The issue was whether a judge could order disclosure of records over which solicitor-client privilege was claimed, to the counsel for the party requesting access under the Ontario provincial access to information legislation. All the lower Ontario courts had said yes; the SCC was of the view that such disclosure could only be granted if "absolutely necessary", which was not proven in this case.

Rothstein J's Reasons are succint (17 pages including the headnote; 34 paragraphs) and represent an unanimous Court. It would probably be naive to think this signals a return to briefer decisions from the SCC…

The Legal Writing Prof Blog had an announcement about a new, on-line legal-writing journal,(American), sponsored by the Salmon P. Chase College of Law and edited by Professors Jennifer Jolly-Ryan and Lawrence Rosenthal. The announcement includes a link to the list of articles posted so far.

The Legal Writing Journal provides a forum for posting both completed works and works in progress that relate to all issues in the legal writing field. The journal seeks articles that cover topics such as 1) effective ways to teach legal writing; (2) the status of individuals who teach legal writing; (3) effective legal writing techniques; and (4) any other issues regarding legal writing. The journal also accepts papers that address the area of legal research. Some of the articles in the first issue include Gender Neutral Language, Active Writing essay, and several articles on the teaching of legal writing and legal research at law schools.

I enjoyed the two day Arc conference last week in Toronto on KM (nice to meet you in person, Connie!), and heard about a lot of projects that are forward looking and exciting. One debate that I found interesting was the distinction between "information" and "knowledge". Some participants ignore the distinction and treat it all the same; others were fastidious about the distinction. My own view at this stage is that there is a significant distinction between the two concepts but considerable confusion. One speaker suggested that information remains information until a recipient receives it, analyzes it and acts upon it, at which point it becomes "knowledge". I realize there are many books out there on KM that deal with this debate, but I thought I would toss it out into the Slaw world to see if anyone has strong views on this…

As part of our firm's KM initiative, we are doing an audit of KM projects that are already in progress in our firm. Various pockets and practice groups are actively pursuing KM projects, even if they are not calling them "KM", including our Research practice group. I am really looking forward to collecting all the information, seeing what is being done, and sharing it within the firm; I expect to be surprised at how much is already being accomplished.

If anyone has also done an internal KM audit recently and has any tips or suggestions, I would appreciate hearing from you. Also, if anyone has KM blogs/ feeds they recommend, I would welcome those also.

This new blog is an example of how narrow the topics can be, and yet how much can be contained in the discussion. Apparently Ken Adams (US) is somewhat of an expert on drafting contracts, and he's just started up a blog on the topic. Here's what he says about the blog:

[The blog] has a specific function. Even after a couple of books and a dozen articles, I still have lots to write about. I’ll continue to use articles to lay out my thoughts on bigger topics, but that leaves plenty of tricky smaller issues of contract language. The blog will provide an incentive for me to actually tackle them, rather than, say, procrastinate until deadlines loom for the next edition of my ABA book “A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting”.

The blog is at http://adamsdrafting.com.

The May 31st post on PC World online has an intriguing article: 100 Best Products of the Year (for the July 2006 issue). Powerful computers, handy services, tiny utilities, mammoth HDTVs: the editors' top picks include all these and a whole lot more. Plus: the 25 worst tech products of all time. You can browse them in numerical or alphabetical order. Even techno idiots like me can enjoy the run-down and advice! There's even a live chat scheduled for June 6th on the list. Dig in and enjoy the feast.

I'd like to find out who else from Slaw is going to the KM Conference for the Legal Profession June 13-14 in Toronto, and any comments about the Arc Group if you've had experience with them.

Check out a new blog on research and legal writing. Susan McDonald is a Tennessee attorney, and a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Ole Miss Law School. She practices solo as a legal research and writing specialist, and on her Research & Writing Blog, offers tips and information to help other lawyers improve their writing.

The blog appears to have started this past April, and is organized according to topics. While it is American based, a lot of the content appears to be useful for our practices also. I was informed of this blog by Raymond Ward's blog that I subscribe to, the (new) legal writer which is described as "a collection of resources for lawyers, who write".

Since it's my "day" to blog, I'm indulging in a topic quite far removed from legal research and technology (but so have the rest of you from time to time!). This news story reminds me of the freedoms we generally take for granted:

I guess I hadn't realized or had forgotten how religion trumps the state in countries like Iran.

The research lawyers here are in the middle of our summer student/clerk Boot Camp training, so it's uppermost on my mind. These are students that have completed either 1 or 2 years of law school, and will be given less complex research assignments during the 4 months here at the firm. We've developed a week long training schedule, that I will share with you as follows (if anyone is interested in the detailed schedule, I can send it via email):

*Introduction to the firm's expectations, internal processes (submitting memos for review, etc.);
*creating and recording a research plan/trail; research guides; organizing your research;
*library resources and library tour;
*intranet (ben.net) searching intranet and internet searching; tips and cautions;
*organization, analysis and writing of BJ memos;
* corporate precedents: data bank, and searching of;
*Canadian Abridgement & CED: print and electronic version: searching (Carswell's rep does this);
*MLB index system: using, searching online
*internal memo bank: how it's indexed; how to search;
*how to search periodical databases;
*BJ oil & gas precedents: use of and searching;
*how to do client specific research, analysis and memoranda;
*research, writing of quantum memos;
*QL databases, pricing and searching;
*Statute research: finding, updating, judicial consideration (librarians teach this).

Our systems people also do training during the week, so the students are pretty much overwhelmed by the end of the week! Somehow they manage to retain a fair bit of this content. The same training is given to our articling students, in two or three sessions as they arrive, with some modifications.
Comments or other's experiences with student training are welcome!

To lighten the tone of this week's serious theme, I give you Justice Peter Smith's trial reasons in the Da Vinci Code copyright case, aka Baigant and Leigh v. Random House Group Limited.

Just to add to the spicy controversy that seems to follow this popular (but only slightly entertaining and definitely non-literary) book, blogger Ashby Jones (WSJ) posits that the judge imbedded his own code into his judgment. Here's part of his post for your own entertainment:

He just couldn’t resist, could he? Justice Peter Smith, the judge who presided over the recent “Da Vinci Code” copyright infringement trial in London reportedly has stuck his own code into his ruling, according to a Reuters story appearing today.

According to the story, lawyer Dan Tench noticed that some letters in the judgment had been italicized, and that, taken together, they spelled out a phrase that included the judge’s name: “Smith code.'’ Tench initially told The Times of London newspaper about it, which prompted an email from the judge, instructing him to look at some early paragraphs. Italicized letters scattered throughout the opinion reportedly spell out: “smithcodeJaeiextostpsacgreamqwfkadpmqz.'’

Some of you may be interested in this scholarly law journal which focusses exclusively on issues, practices, and procedures of appellate court systems, both federal and state, both American and international. Edited by faculty members of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's William H. Bowen School of Law, The Journal is designed to provide a forum for creative thought and dialogue about the operation of appellate courts and their influence on the development of the law. The Journal is published semi-annually; subscriptions outside the US are $30/year. The Spring 2005 issue (TOC on the journal's website) features an essay by Peter McCormick, "Selecting the Supremes: The Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of Canada" . The website to the Journal is http://www.ualr.edu/japp.

In a less esoteric approach to this day of celebration of romance, here is a link to the history of Valentine's Day you might enjoy, and use for office trivia banter…

The Wall Street Journal has a law blog. It's apparently about law, business and the business of law, written mostly by WSJ writer Peter Lattman. Here's the link: http://blogs.wsj.com/law.

Someone, Elizabeth I think, had asked what other people chose to get RSS feeds from. Here's some of the ones I've found useful on a daily basis:

WSJ.com law blog
Health law Prof blog
Real Lawyers Have Blogs
lawfirmblogging.com
the (new) legal writer
Legal Writing Prof Blog.

I, too, would be interested in others' picks.

There's no escaping it, apparently. Almost every day I see articles on the coming of e-books, and declarations they will replace the lovely bound books that I collect, read, annotate, store and dust occasionally.

Here's a link to a recent article, "A Hundred Books in Your Pocket", from the Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2006 by Terry Teachout. If that link doesn't work please contact me if interested and I can send you a copy of the article.

He describes Sony's Reader, a pocket sized e-book reader that makes use of E Ink and is slated to be on sale this spring. Apparently at least 3 major publishers are on board.

For those of you who access PubMed or NLM Gateway for medical literature, here is a useful article from the New England Journal of Medicine on researching: "Searching for the Right Search – Reaching the Medical Literature": http://content.nejm.org/current.shtml. Dr. Steinbrook describes how web-based search engines are transforming our use of medical literature, and discusses the various search engines available, eg. PubMed, Google Scholar, and Yahoo.

Happy New Year, all.

I thought I would take advantage of the international nature of Slaw's contributors and readers, to search out an answer to a question that occupies my mind from time to time. Across Canada, "legal research" is conducted by lawyers, at the courts and in private practice. By "legal research", I mean to include the finding of relevant law on a given issue; the analysis of the state of the law; and the application of the law to the given problem/file/issues. In our firm, the reference librarians will find law if given the parameters such as the name of the legislation or treaty, style of cause of the case, or noting up of caselaw, but the rest is done by lawyers (and articling students). From discussions with colleagues in other provinces, that appears to represent most practices, although the extent of the librarians' research varies as many also have law degrees.

What I am curious about, it whether this represents the practice of legal research in other jurisdictions? I have not heard of "research lawyers" in the U.S. or Australia/New Zealand.

So, I am soliciting comments from those of you outside of Canada. Please let us know how legal research is conducted in your jurisdiction, and what is meant by "legal research", in your view.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

http://www.michaelhyatt.com/workingsmart/2005/12/the_death_of_tr.html

At this time of year, I indulge in one of my favorite pastimes: browsing bookstores. The theory is that I'm looking for gifts for friends and family, while the reality is that I also end up at the till with books for me. Guessing that most of us are bibliophiles, I thought you'd be interested in the above article. The link is to a publisher's view of the future of the book publishing industry. The link takes you to "The death of traditional book publishing"; there is a link from there to another post by the same publisher, which responds to responses to the earlier post. While I've embraced technology for work purposes to a large degree, I still maintain there is a role for traditional hardcopy books in legal research. That is even more true for personal reading pleasure…Comments?

The WebLog 2005 Awards have closed nominations for the best web logs, and now we can vote. The blogs are put into categories, including law blogs, and international (including Best Canadian blogs). Here's the link to the top 15 law blogs you can vote on: http://weblogawards.org/2005/12/best_law_blog.php. And, for voting on the best Canadian blog (none of which appear to be blawgs): http://weblogawards.org/2005/12/best_canadian_blog.php.

Two weeks ago when I'd last posted, I'd asked for replies on your use of commercial versus free online databases for legal research, with a breakdown between legislative, caselaw and legal commentary issues. My own practice is predominantly using commercial databases over free. The response I received from others on Slaw, and from some colleagues at my firm, were instructive:
*Use of commercial ($) db's rather than free: Legislation: >50%: 4
<50%: 3
50%: 1

*Use of $ db's rather than free: Caselaw: >50%: 7
<50%: 0
50%: 1

*Use of $ db's rather than free: Legal commentary: >50%: 7
<50%: 1

I learned from this rough survey that I should take another look at the free legislative databases available, although I suspect part of the skew in choice stems from the rather fluid understanding of the term "research". It can include looking for a downloadable copy of a specific statute or regulation (for which the free databases are adequate), or can include searching for relevant statutes or regulations for a given issue, in which case I am still inclined to use the commercial databases (which includes our Queen's Printer as we pay for a subscription for it). The availability of provincial legislation, and how it is accessed and paid for, may also count for the differences.

Almost everyone surveyed relied more on commercial databases for caselaw research and legal commentary, which is unsurprising. Hopefully CanLII will continue to improve its scope of coverage and search utilities, so that it becomes a reasonable alternative for doing caselaw research. (For example, Alberta cases are only back to 1998).

I also learned that I have a lot to learn about designing surveys! Thanks to Simon Chester for contributing several results from his firm, and to Connie Crosby for your comments on CanLII.

[I'm posting earlier than my designated date as I will be away on "retreat/holiday" for next week. Cheers!]

I'd like everyone's feedback on an issue that arises from time to time when I talk with other research lawyers in Calgary. Until recently, it was our view that the free websites (eg. CanLII) were not very useful; their search capabilities were clumsy, their coverage was limited, and/or the scope and coverage of the database was not known. While it is likely the free databases of legal materials are improving, it is my impression, and my practice, to use the commercial databases for most of my comprehensive legal research. I would like to know what others are doing in their legal research, however, and propose a survey of sorts.

Please respond by indicating what percentage of your legal research is done on commercial, and free databases (eg. commercial: 90%/free: 10%), for a)legislative; b)caselaw;c)legal commentary. Also, please indicate if your practice is private practice (and large/medium/small firm), or government or academia. Finally, indicate where you are located (city/province), and any comments you'd like to add. If you can, please survey your colleagues and send in their responses.

I will tally up all the responses and report on them for my next post in two weeks. This may give all of us some empirical data to consider and share. I'm looking forward to responses.

Here's my response, for starters:
Legislative research: 90% commercial/10% free;
Caselaw: 95% commercial/5 % free;
Legal commentary: 90% commercial/10% free.
I practice in a large firm, in Calgary Alberta.

Cheers

Our Future, Our Past: The Alberta Heritage Digitization Project (AHDP) is an ongoing, not-for-profit endeavor to provide all those interested in Alberta's history free, online access to cultural and heritage materials. Don Sanders, librarian at the University of Calgary Law School headed up the legislative project, and the steering committee which I belonged to.

The University of Calgary Press with the support of the Alberta Law Foundation are behind the project, which has now digitized all of the documents that form Alberta's legislative history. Here you will find all of the Statutes up to 1990, Legislative Assembly Bills, Debates and Journals, the Alberta Gazette and the Ordinances of the Northwest Territories prior to the birth of Alberta. Current and historical municipal bylaws from across Alberta will be added in 2006-07.

The search template is designed for anyone to use, and I have found it quite good. You may Browse the collection or Search by keyword. Help screens are available for information about the documents and about how to search these pages. The collection is organized as follows:

Searching in: Statutes of Alberta (1905 – 1990)
Revised Statutes of Alberta (1922, 1942, 1955, 1970, 1980)
Ordinances of the Northwest Territories (1877 – 1905)
Bills of the Alberta Legislature (1906 – 1990)
Debates of the Alberta Legislature (Hansards) (1972 – 1993)
Journals of the Alberta Legislature (1906 – 1989)
Alberta Gazette (includes Regulations) (1905 – 1990)

For pure personal interest, and for those closet historical writers, you can also browse newspapers from 1885, read entire books about local communities, and view historic photographs.

Have a look, if you haven't done so already: http://136.159.239.228//law/index.html.

I've developed Top Five and Top Ten lists as part of the Boot Camp I teach, with my colleagues, to articling students at our law firm. While it started out in fun, I soon discovered that it was an effective teaching tool that students paid attention to (as opposed to anything else I said), and have spent time refining it recently. I thought I'd offer this one as my first post, (although it's not very tech-y) and welcome comments.

TOP FIVE MISTAKES TO AVOID IN ELECTRONIC RESEARCH

1. Missed higher level of Court: This one's a career-limiting move! Did you check judicial history in more than one source? I recommend you use one electronic source (eg. QuickCite) and one paper source (eg. Canadian Case Citator); another research lawyer here believes using just electronic sources is ok so long as you check two different ones;

2. Relying solely on electronic databases : More often than not it is best to first browse a textbook in the relevant area of law before going online; you will be able to benefit from someone else's work, develop ideas for argument, and refine your queries when you do go online; this should lead tobecoming more time efficient[ it gets you out of your office, too!] Don't forget to go back to the paper resources throughout your research if appropriate; ask yourself if you've taken too narrow an approach to the problem; use the library catalogue rather than scanning the shelves as the best texts/resources are often checked out;

3.Missing relevant cases: inadequate selection of databases in electronic sources: Using full text databases before checking other resources first is a common mistake; use headnote/summary databases (on westlawecarswell,eg. Can.Abr.Digests; on QL, eg., CCS, QPIQ for quantum, or topical databases); try journal and legal literature index databases before using full text caselaw databases such as CJ);

4. Missing relevant cases: search syntax poor: Garbage in, garbage out. Remember to use truncation, synonyms, various spellings & misspellings; check syntax rules for different databases; come see one of the research lawyers in advance and we'll help you structure your searches for online databases;

5. Googling your legal issue: None of the research lawyers polled have found this to be a successful strategy, except in rare instances, eg. the legal issue has been headline news, or involves policy discussion or ethical questions; even if your search terms are useful ones, you will get too much junk in your results. If you want to use the internet, go to specific sites, eg. provincial court or Queen's Printer sites, Law Reform sites, or other legal sites (CanLII), etc. Google can be useful for non-legal searching however.