A few weeks ago, Connie Crosby wrote about the challenge for law librarians in earning a law degree, especially if they're already working in a law library and don't want to attend law school full time. Around the same time, John Papadopoulos wrote about how the Legal Literature and Librarianship class at the University of Toronto's Information School is always oversubscribed. It appears there is an opportunity here to fill.

After many years of planning, last June, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries/Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit presented a week long program called the New Law Librarians' Institute. This program was aimed at librarians new to the law, or interested in working in the legal field, to give them a crash course, a sort of "everything you need to know about the law" in one week. Held at the University of Western Ontario's law school, 20 lucky participants from all over the country got an intensive introduction to not just legal research, but also substantive law. I contacted two participants to get their impressions.

Allan Chan is a law librarian at Fillmore Riley LLP in Winnipeg, Manitoba. At the time the Institute took place, Allan had four years' experience working in a law library. Amanda Merk was working at an American law firm in Boston, MA. Both had significant experience in law libraries, so I was curious about why they would choose the Law Librarians' Institute.

Although their backgrounds were quite different, their motivation was similar. Allan had come from an academic medical library, and although he had taken online courses in legal research, he felt he still had some gaps. He thought an intense program focussing on legal concepts would be beneficial. Amanda is a Canadian living in the United States, but is interested in returning to Canada. She wanted to deepen her knowledge of Canadian law, and meet more Canadian colleagues so she could develop working relationships. She was also very impressed with the content of the course offerings and the speakers.

The substantive law sections, like Introduction to Constitutional Law and Introduction to Torts Law were very valuable to Allan. As he put it:

Most participants in the program did not have law school backgrounds. The instructors took complex areas of law which were fundamental and were able to break it down so that it was understandable without oversimplifying. The instructors were all knowledgeable in their fields and came well prepared. 

Both Allan and Amanda enjoyed meeting their classmates, with whom they also shared accommodations. Exploring the community of London, Ontario was a nice perk.

Although the Institute was aimed at new librarians, both Allan and Amanda would recommend it to anyone working in a law library who wants to enhance their legal knowledge.

As Amanda says:

I will say that the very best part of the program for me was the experience of being on campus in such a great learning environment. The coordinators of the Institute went above and beyond to make us feel welcome and to have a very high quality learning experience.

I hope the organizers are thinking of planning another Institute. You already have a volunteer – Amanda would love to be on the planning committee.

Recently, Slaw introduced Talklaw, a calendar of legal conferences and events. This reminded me of an annual legal conference that doesn't get talked about much outside of Manitoba, the Isaac Pitblado Lectures.

Non-Manitobans are not likely to be familiar with Isaac Pitblado. As stated in the biography from the Pitblado Lectures published papers:

At the time of Isaac Pitblado's death, the Hon. Richard S. Bowles, the President of the Law Society of Manitoba, said about him:

The Law Society has lost its most respected and beloved member. Canada has lost one of its most able and distinguished sons.

 Mr. Pitblado made a name for himself in the law through the issues of freight rates and grain marketing.

Isaac Pitblado’s reputation as a great legal mind grew partly from his deep involvement with the important issues of freight rates and grain marketing. He was first retained on a freight rates matter by the City of Winnipeg in 1912. Thirty-five years later, Mr. Pitblado appeared as senior counsel for the C.N.R. and the C.P.R., who were applying to the Board of Railway Commissioners for a freight rate increase. He was 80 years old at the time. Grand as his performance was in that hearing, it was by no means his last hurrah. In 1951, at the age of 84, he represented the Winnipeg Electric Company at legislative hearings to fight the Company’s planned takeover by the Manitoba Government. Despite an eloquent and impassioned four and one half-hour submission by Mr. Pitblado, the takeover was ultimately enacted.

When he died at 97 in 1976, he had been a member of the Manitoba Bar for 74 years.

The Pitblado lectures were created in 1960, on the 70th anniversary of Isaac Pitblado's call to the Manitoba Bar. They pull together experts from across Canada and internationally. This year's lecture, "Back from the Brink", dealt with bankruptcy, and included presentations from Frank Bennett and Janis Sarra, as well as many local bankruptcy experts. While aimed at practicing members, this year's lecture was also opened to others who work in bankruptcy and insolvency.

I attended the lecture of a couple of years ago, "Practising Law in the 21st Century: Evolution or Revolution". Richard Susskind and Jordan Furlong were two of the speakers that year. Presentations were on the future of the practice of law, as well as the changing expectations of different generations of lawyers. I came away understanding more about the intricacies of managing a law firm, and what a challenge it must be to be the managing partner.

It seems to me that these lectures are on par with special lectures put on by the Law Society of Upper Canada. Each year is focussed on a single topic. The Lectures are organized by a committee of the Law Society of Manitoba, Manitoba Bar Association and the University of Manitoba law school, and count for CPD credit. The quality of the papers produced for these lectures is very high. I have had requests for copies of articles from the 1960s series of lectures. Running through the titles from 1960 on, you can watch the development of the law: from Estate Planning and Income Tax in the beginning, to The Law and the Minor and Commercial and Competition Law in the 1970s, to Practising Law in an Aboriginal Reality and Elder Law in the beginning of this century.

Additional information about Isaac Pitblado:

Manitoba Historical Society biography

Biography of Isaac Pitblado, Pitblado Lecture series [PDF]

The study of law is very intriguing, for someone like me who came to it via the back route. Since I work in a law firm library, and haven't been to law school, I am very aware of my limitations when it comes to legal research. I like to think that makes me more observant and diligent. One of the things I've observed is the way the law overlaps. A few years ago, I was helping an associate sort out where he'd find the answers to a question involving dangerous driving. He ended up needing three separate pieces of legislation: The Highway Traffic Act to define the offence; The Summary Convictions Act to determine the penalty; and a regulation under The Manitoba Public Insurance Act to figure out the fine and demerits on the driver's license. (As an aside, the legislation database on CanLII was a great help, being the only free database able to search both statutes and regulations at the same time.)

An issue where this overlap is very obvious is with user generated content (UGC). I came across this well researched paper, User Generated Content: Recent Developments in Canada and the US by Len Glickman and Jessica Fingerhut of Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP. It explores all the different areas of law potentially affected. Aside from the obvious-to-me (copyright), there's defamation, trade-mark, privacy, advertising issues, employment, and the use of this content in litigation. UGC comes in the form of blogs, tweets, Facebook entries, videos, forums, comments on other people's sites – far more areas than I realized. And every day seems to bring new issues for the courts to decide on, like how you can use someone's Facebook pages to whose duty it is to inform clients that their data is being saved on photocopiers.

It seems to me that UGC could be considered a metaphor for the rapid way technology has taken over the law.

Why bring up UGC? As a blogger, I am well aware of these concerns, especially from a legal perspective. I helped launch a firm-wide blog at my last firm, and learned first hand all the reasons why lawyers should NOT be blogging. I was also intrigued by this post from Kevin O'Keefe, "Law Professor's blog causes federal judge to revisit decision". The work that some people are publishing in blogs is as relevant as an authoritative treatise, and is published so much faster.

Of course, not all blogs are created equal. One way to help readers determine authority in blog postings would be to index them. Simon Fodden recently asked for Slaw to be included in the Index of Canadian Legal Literature (ICLL). I am a big fan of the ICLL, and appreciate the authority of its content when I'm looking for secondary sources. However, I wonder if it's necessary for selected Slaw content (or indeed, other great blogs like thecourt.ca) to be indexed in this type of a source? The main reason for indexing is to help users find relevant content on a specific subject. But through search engines, all of Slaw's content is readily available to anyone. The other aspect, as I already mentioned, is the selection process itself. An editor has reviewed the content and determined what it is about, and that it is important enough that a researcher might find it useful. When you have a choice of a million results on Google, or five in ICLL, obviously you're going to review the ICLL results first.

This is a rapidly changing area of law - it will be interesting to see where it goes.

With all the flooding news and euphoria about getting an NHL team again (Go Jets Go!), you could be forgiven for thinking nothing else was happening in Manitoba. However, you would be seriously wrong.

Manitoboba amended the Elections Act a few years ago, adding fixed-year election terms (s.49.1(2)), with October 4, 2011 being the first one. One of the conditions requires that the government not advertise or publish information about its programs or activities in the 90 days before October 4th. This means we are seeing a flurry of announcements in this run-up to the end of the current legislative sitting. The Winnipeg Free Press published a nice article recently describing all the activity.

The government introduced new legislation as well as amendments to existing statutes. I'd like to mention a couple of initiatives that I think will be ground-breaking, if they get passed.

We're familiar with child abuse registries. Bill 36, The Adult Abuse Registry Act and Amendments to the Vulnerable Persons Living with a Mental Disabilitly Act, will create Canada's first adult abuse registry (Yosie Saint-Cyr first wrote about it on Slaw here).

While not the first province to do so, Manitoba is finally setting up a special Mental Health court for less-serious criminal code charges. This has been in the works since 2008. It is anticipated that it should start hearing cases by this winter.

Manitoba has an incredibly low vacancy rate for apartments and houses. Combined with government rent-controlled increases, landlords have been converting existing buildings into condominiums at a rapid pace. The government introduced Bill 40, The Condominium Act and Amendments Respecting Condominium Conversions in order to try to slow down the removal of rental properties from the market.

The Grieving Families Protection Act (Bill 39) aims to protect consumers who prepay funerals and increase the fines of those convicted of vandalism in a cemetery. Talk about multi-tasking!

There's nothing worse for a young family than buying a new house in a new subdivision, and then finding out that the new school that was supposed to built, won't be. Winnipeg schools have a lot of empty seats in older neighbourhoods, and rather than build schools where the children are, the province will fund busing instead. Bill 48, The Planning and Land Dedication for School Sites Act prohibits developers from advertising that a school will be built on a particular piece of land.

But wait, there's more … If you'd like to see the full extent of this spring's legislative activity, check out the list of bills on the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba site. There's truly something for everyone!

I recently celebrated five years working in a law library. I graduated with my library technician diploma eight years ago, and yet I still feel new to the library world. I think part of the reason for that is I have a relentless curiosity about everything, so I'm always asking questions. My latest wonderings today are about Knowledge Management

My knowledge of Knowledge Management is self-taught; what I've read on blogs and white papers, and what I've gleaned in conversations with KM practitioners. I've been thinking about it a lot more lately, since I recently left one firm to join another. I tried to leave notes wherever possible, but of course, a lot of my knowledge didn't get left behind. And in my new firm, there are areas where I have to start from scratch as well, even though the previous librarian did a much better job of leaving a trail than I did.

There isn't anyone taking on a KM role in my new firm, so I thought I would try to develop it. I've been trying to get my head around knowledge management as a discipline. While browsing through my rss feeds, I see that I'm not the only one trying to understand and implement this concept. A guest post on 3 Geeks and a law blog (KM: The Big Room by Ryan McLead) posed the same question. Fortunately, I also came across Guy St. Clair's series of blog posts on how to introduce KM into an organization. So I have a few places to start.

As with all new projects, the first thing to determine is what I want to achieve. In simple terms, I want to leave a roadmap of my work so that if I'm hit by that proverbial bus, someone can step in and take over without a huge delay. Applying it overall to the firm, I'd like for anyone to be able to access and retrieve anyone else's work product. This is where a document management system would come in very handy. A controlled vocabulary is a must as well. I can see that just getting started is going to be a challenge!

I know that KM is more than a technology solution, but I'm not quite sure what else to include. I will be reviewing Guy's posts very closely, as well as other blogs on KM. Please feel free to offer any other suggestions for developing a KM strategy in the comments.

Additional Resources:

Mary Abraham's Above and Beyond KM

ILTA KM blog

Once Were Lawyers (Ryan McLead's follow-up post)

Everyone's talking about the future. From LegalTech New York, where the closing keynote was the practice of law in 2020, to IT's role in the library of the future, and SLA's FutureReady365 blog. It's interesting to be reading about predictions on where our profession may be going. One document I came across a while ago was the Association of Research Libraries' 2030 Scenarios : A User Guide for Research Libraries. I started reading it (it's 92 pages!) to see if it had any application for a law firm library.

Can you imagine the world in 2030? I can't, but the ARL Scenarios do. It's not quite the future that I would like to see, but then, is the present what anyone predicted 20 years ago? The scenarios envision a world where researchers are free agents, and universities scramble for funding. (Hmm…how is that different from today, at least the second part?) There are four scenarios presented: Research Entrepreneurs, Reuse and Recycle, Disciplines in Charge, and Global Followers. Each one outlines a particular day in the life of a star researcher, Hannah Chen. The world is described slightly differently in each scenario, but varies on the theme that government funding of universities will dry up, mainly due to declining tax revenues, universities will seek more partnerships with businesses, and both students and faculty will be competing for meaningful positions.

So what are the strategic implications of these scenarios? Scenario 1: Research Entrepreneurs, resonated the most with me. Note the following strategic question that arose:

How do we begin now to develop the library professional of the future – a highly capable and credible service provider who can work directly with researchers with data preparation and curation capabilities? What skills are we currently developing in our library professionals that may not be valued in the future? (p. 39)

Replace "researcher" with "lawyer", and we're already at this scenario, at least regarding data preparation and curation capabilities (think compiling case law on a point of law, and determining which resources have the authority to be used to develop an argument). As to the skills we're currently developing that may not be valued in the future – how about some of the audiovisual equipment training! All kidding aside, most of the skills I have are transferable across many occupations, and even something as library-specific as cataloguing can be useful in cross-training to write computer languages.

So how does this relate to the law firm library of the future? I've been thinking a lot about the physical space necessary to define the library of the near future, say in the next five years or so. My current space is fairly traditional – lots of shelving for (mostly) reporting series that are no longer collected, and a small work area. I haven't quite figured out what is the best use of the space if I had the opportunity to renovate. Should there be more social areas, equipped with comfortable chairs and tables, to encourage use of the library as a place to meet and discuss? Or should it be a quiet area, where lawyers can review the resources they need without being disturbed? My personal preference is to see the space become more conducive to conversation – kind of like the lawyers' lounge without the bar.

There have been a number of discussions of law library space recently. I especially enjoyed Louis Mirando's posts, Rebuilding a Law School Library. Any ideas on what the future holds for law libraries? Will private firms outsource part or all of them? Or will it be a competitive advantage to house your own knowledge management team? What skills will we need? What does 2030 look like to you?

Information overload, and ways to overcome it, has been mentioned on Slaw several times. I came across this article from SSRN titled "What We Don't Know We Don't Know" and it reminded me of the consequences of ignorance. Although I thought the article was going to be about ways to overcome information overload, it quickly shifted to an analysis of scholarly research and the metrics used to measure it, such as the impact factor (IF). I found the use of measurement very transferable to legal research, such as the IF in a legal decision of the number of citations by other cases.

At any rate, it was the title itself that drew me in. I recall an articling student asking for my help in a situation where a client was in trouble (aren’t they all?) because of the performance of a third party and he wanted to know what the responsibility of the third party was. My first question was, what was the qualification of the third party? Then I asked, what did the client ask of them? Did the client give them enough information? Did they perform their duties to the best of their ability, or did they have a disclaimer because they weren’t given enough information? Were they part of a regulated profession? The student had none of these answers. He returned to his principal for more information.

How do you come to accept that you don’t, and can’t, know everything? Each year I’m introduced to new articling students who I don’t think can top the previous year’s group, and every year I’m proven wrong. Yet, no matter how intelligent, and how keen, they are surprised by all the information they don’t know. I think it’s probably not for a number of years that they finally accept that there’s a ton of information available, and they’re never going to know it all.

Recently, on some of the listservs I follow, I’ve been seeing requests for alert services that provide 24/7 service. (Apparently some commercial services only provide updates during regular business hours.) Is this another example of organizations trying to keep on top of information? In my own practice, I have made a conscious decision to restrict my monitoring to weekdays and business hours, to ensure I’m not working 24/7. (Sometimes I envy Shaunna Mireau and her life off the grid.)

I have only been working in a law library for five years, and I am astounded by the advancements that have taken place in that short a time. I can’t imagine what it was like to be a law librarian before CanLII. Or how you found brief authoritative articles without Lexology. Yes, I’m familiar with the Index of Canadian Legal Literature, but that’s only an index, it’s not the full text article. In some ways our job has become so much easier and yet, so much more difficult. I was recently asked to find a tribunal decision for a particular organization based on who the lawyer was not, using free resources only. No, I didn’t find that. Kudos to law librarians in the 1990’s and earlier.

One way I’ve chosen to combat information overload is to review a select group of resources. Connie Crosby wrote about influencers the other day – I consider these resources my “influencers”. I use them to keep me in touch with the latest developments in the areas I’ve chosen to know about. I listen to other law librarians, lawyers who blog in areas my firm is interested in, as well as a few political pundits and policy wonks. I look for the "IF" – if everyone mentions the same topic, it must be relevant. But there are lots of topics I know nothing about, and that is the one lesson I’d like our articling students and new associates to learn. You don’t have to know everything, just find someone who does. That’s what I’m here for.

*Disclaimer: No actual articling student was used in the telling of this story. This is a composite of a number of requests I have received over the years.

Access to justice is a hot topic, having been discussed on Slaw in the past few months here and here. Here in Winnipeg, the catalyst was the release of the 2008 United Nations Report, Making the Law Work for Everyone. Our response to this report is the Legal Help Centre.

Executive Director Karen Dyck envisions the Legal Help Centre as a place "… to assist disadvantaged members of our community to access and exercise their legal and social rights." This agency will help people determine their next course of action in solving a problem, which may not even require a lawyer. Karen Dyck likens it to a "triage" service, where people can meet with someone who will listen to their problem, and then direct them to the proper channels, whether it's getting your landlord to turn on the heat, or something for the Manitoba Ombudsman's office. So many organizations are available to help resolve problems, yet most people aren't aware of them, or don't know the right language to use to get the help they need. The Legal Help Centre's goal is to fill that void.

The centre has amassed support from a veritable who's who of the Manitoba legal community. The Honourable Madam Justice Suche of the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench is president of the board, and Sarah Lugtig, a Crown Attorney with Manitoba Justice is vice president. Sherri Walsh, a partner with Hill Sokalski Vincent Walsh Trippier LLP is a board advisor on the Community Resource Committee. What I think is most unique about it, however, is its multi-disciplinary approach, recognizing the sociological aspect of many legal problems. The University of Manitoba Law School, in conjunction with the Faculty of Social Work, has created a course for students in both programs. Completion of coursework will require a practicum involving volunteering with the Legal Help Centre. As well, students and faculty of the University of Winnipeg's Global College and Departments of Criminal Justice and Conflict Resolution Studies will be tapped to help fill the many volunteer hours required to staff such a huge operation.

This summer the centre received a grant to hire two law students. They created a database of agencies and organizations that already provide the services potential clients will need. This illustrateded one of the challenges facing the Legal Help Centre: running on a shoestring budget, lacking even the funding to purchase licenses for the necessary software, and relying on open source and freeware like Google docs applications instead. Financial support has come from several law firms in the form of a per lawyer donation for start-up, as well as office furniture (from Tapper Cuddy LLP) and office space from the University of Winnipeg. Grant applications have been made to numerous foundations for operating funds.

Some of the programming the centre is working on is partnering with Pro Bono Students Canada to design a clinic to assist people bringing an action in small claims court. They're also working on a family law clinic for self-represented litigants.

The Legal Help Centre plans to be in business by mid-January 2011. The University of Winnipeg has offered the physical space, and Karen Dyck is hoping for a storefront location to make it easier for people to find. While there isn't a website yet, you can connect with the centre on Twitter – @legalhelpcentre.

For more reading:

News release: Legal Help Centre

I tend to live in the future. I think about what it will be like when I've paid off all my debts, how I'm going to celebrate a significant event coming up next year, and what my next job will look like. So last December, when the legal outsourcing firm Integreon announced the first "Shared Information Service", or outsourced law library services, I was very intrigued. At the time, I remember thinking, "how are they going to do this?" I can understand outsourcing research (be it legal, business development or competitive intelligence), but how do you outsource the physical library itself? Would they be circulating texts among their clients, like our courthouse and academic law libraries do? If so, how would you determine how many copies of each item you would need to have? How would you share resources?

So I was happy to come across this report from @woodsiegirl (Laura – an information assistant at a London law firm) from the 2010 BIALL conference. This session, entitled Emerging alternative models for managing information resources in law firms, sounded like it would be informative. However, instead it was more like a sales pitch. It even ran over its alloted time, which didn't allow for the probing questions that could have provided the answers conference attendees were looking for.

What really interested me was how Integreon stressed that this was a great opportunity for law librarians. One firm had its entire library staff become Integreon employees. They emphasized that there was much more meaningful work because there were more clients, which I took to mean more research, analysis and report writing and less administration. There wasn't much discussion about sharing physical resources, so I still don't have an answer for that. In fact, they mentioned that under some circumstances, like a need for extreme confidentiality, some firms would choose to keep some work in house. But if you've got rid of your staff, who does it?

I'm also interested in the back story – how did staff feel suddenly working for Integreon instead of their firm? How do you change your feelings of loyalty, when unexpectedly you're working for the competition? What about the knowledge these employees took from their firm, like which lawyers likes to receive their information in print form, who prefers "just the facts", and who wants an indepth analysis. I realize I have far more questions than answers.

Laura's position is that outsourcing library services is not a good idea, although she does admit she is biased. I don't think I have enough information to take a position just yet. I can see the value of outsourcing if it's a service you otherwise wouldn't have. If you're a large firm though, I would think having an in-house library is essential, and if your firm doesn't believe it is, maybe the library director needs to do a better selling job. I know, I know, pretty simplistic. There are so many factors driving business decisions, and even when two organizations arrive at the same solution, their reasons for it can be diametrically opposed.

I believe that there are independent law library consultants here in Canada, although I'm not sure what services they provide. I think there could be value providing collection development advice, particularly to smaller firms who get all of their information from the legal publishers. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but vendors do have particular products to sell and an independent consultant could offer neutrality. Offering legal research training would be another niche, as well as current awareness. Subscription management is already offered by some firms. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who does provide any of these services now.

And if there's any more commentary about Integreon's new service that I just haven't found, please feel free to add it in the comments.

Info, info everywhere, nor any place to shelve. (With apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.)

In a library, information overload can mean a physical overload as well as mental. Reporting series, annual statutes, conference papers all take up shelf room; how do you know what to keep and what can safely be turfed? One of my colleagues recently called and asked if I kept a particular item on my shelves. No, I didn't, since it was officially available online. After all, shelves do eventually fill up, and if some other organization is willing to store what I need, I'm quite willing to let them. However, no matter how long I work at my firm, I'm always wondering about what I should keep.

When I first started, the easiest thing to do was to do nothing; I was not going to throw out even a 20 year old CLE that six months later I would discover was indispensable to a senior partner. I watched what my clients used and asked why they used it. I read the CALL listserv and considered what other librarians were asking for. When it finally came down to actually removing something, I pulled it from the shelf, put it on a cart and hid it for at least six months, to see if anyone even noticed that it was gone. There actually were some items that ended up back on the shelf, but the majority headed for the garbage bin. So far, it's been a successful strategy.

As I pondered what to do with the content in my library, I decided I also needed a policy, something that would explain to other people, particularly my clients, why I kept some books and not others. Of course, the first thing I did was search other libraries' sites and see if there were any weeding policies already available. Naturally, there were. LibraryCo's Collection and Highlights Standards were very helpful, and formed the core of the policy I ended up creating.

The other side of "decommissioning" material is to consider what other library carries what I'm discarding, and if can I get it somewhere else fairly easily. Since the catalogues of both the Law Society of Manitoba's Great Library and the University of Manitoba's Law School library are available online, it was easy, although time-consuming, to verify that older editions of some of the less-used items in my library were readily available. There's also an informal network of local law firm librarians who I can contact to borrow other material. Sometimes I've been able to rely on the public library and other academic libraries for material as well. However, as Shaunna Mireau recently wrote, with the consolidation going on at the Alberta Government Libraries, I shall have to remain vigilant to make sure I can still get older material that I need.

The last time weeding was discussed on Slaw was in 2008, by Wendy Reynolds (funnily enough, I made the first comment!). Wendy used the phrase "just in time" collection development, as opposed to "just in case". Just like the manufacturers who originated "just in time" delivery, libraries also face fiscal and physical pressures as we provide access to resources for our clients. We have to balance someone needing a copy of one particular journal article from 1986 at midnight on a Saturday night, with the cost of keeping every issue of that journal on the shelf. Every day I just hope I made the right decision.

Last September, Melanie Bueckert, Legal Research Counsel at the Manitoba Court of Appeal, (and occasional Slaw contributor), saw a reference to the Head-Start Program offered by the Edmonton Law Libraries Association (ELLA). As a law librarian in a small market, I was both aware and envious of the program and the association that presented it. While I fantasized about the possibility of offering a similar program here in Winnipeg, Melanie took a bolder step and asked if it were possible to put on a similar program here, by collaborating with law librarians. Since Melanie was also co-chair of the Manitoba Bar Association’s Legal Research Section (with Darla Rettie, a colleague of my firm), all of a sudden the program went from a fantasy to a possibility.

We arranged a meeting between Darla, Melanie, and several Winnipeg law firm and government library staff to determine if there was a need for the program, and if so, how would we do it. As trainers of articling and summer students, and junior associates, we’re well aware of the need for legal research training that takes into account the practical realities of a law firm or the Department of Justice. It didn’t take long to strike a committee, as well as to connect with Eileen Derksen Mead of the Law Society of Manitoba as an additional partner. She was the catalyst to make this come true, by taking on overall administration and organization as well providing inspiration.

Shaunna Mireau (another Slaw contributor) very kindly forwarded to us copies of ELLA’s planning documents, which we used as a template. Our program will run one day, and while it is targeted at articling students, we will open it up to other lawyers who would like a refresher in legal research, or who are new calls to Manitoba, as numbers warrant.

The core committee consisted of Eileen Derksen Mead, Program Counsel – Continuing Education and Competence at the Law Society, Melanie Bueckert and Darla Rettie, and Jodi Turner of Justice Canada, Emma Wood of Tapper Cuddy LLP, Garth Niven of the Great Library, and me. Jodi had participated in the ELLA program several years ago, so she brought that practical experience to the table.

We knew this had to be a hands-on program. These students had just gone through three years of law school lectures, and now they needed to “do” the law. After much brainstorming over lunches provided by the Law Society (thank you very much!), we developed a format that would cover all the branches of legal research in one day – from the research interview all the way through to writing the memo. With a maximum registration of 60, students would be divided into four groups. The whole group would get the problem, and then break out into sessions covering commentary, case law, forms and precedents, and legislation. I don’t want to give too much more away, except to say that Darla created a query that covers all of these situations and could very well have come from her own practice.