I realized yesterday that if one selects a number of databases on CanLII from the Database Search screen (e.g., all decisions from labour and employment tribunals or all decisions from human rights tribunals), the resulting URL when clicking on "Search" with a "blank" search is a stable URL that can be sent to a user or linked on an intranet to, in essence, create a customized "global" database search for the user to focus their search on the given topic.

Perhaps too obvious a thing too mention, but my tired brain yesterday thought it was pretty neat.

Here are the links to the foregoing two examples:

All Labour and Employment Tribunal Decisions on CanLII (excluding workers comp, human rights, and OHSA databases): Click here.

In the foregoing example, clicking on the link indicates that, as of this morning, there were 109,685 decisions on CanLII from the various labour- and employment-related databases chosen. With this search, one can then simply search those labour and employment decisions by full-text, by case name, and so on.

All Human Rights Tribunal Decisions on CanLII: Click here.

In this example, clicking on the link indicates that, as of this morning, there were 12,250 decisions on CanLII from the various human rights-related databases chosen.

I guess the disadvantage of adding these "stable" links to intranets is that new databases might be added to CanLII after the stable link was created, forcing the keeper of the link to periodically check or update the link. Likewise, users should be told of the scope of the databases included (as I have tried to do above, where I indicated the link for labour and employment decisions did not include workers comp, human rights, and OHSA decisions). However, the resulting "search page" is fairly transparent, indicating a summary of the total number of databases included from each jurisdiction with the ability for the user to click through for the details of which databases are included.

Either I overlooked what must have been a recent update to Pages for iPad at that time or in fact there was an actual update in the last 6 weeks, since it is now relatively easy to add footnotes (and headers and footers, among other things) while word processing in Pages.

The online help from Apple here discusses how to do this (it is simply a matter of pressing the "Insert" menu button at the point of insertion where you want the footnote).

Screenshot showing "Insert" menu in Pages on an iPad

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Screenshot showing "Footnote" menu option in Pages on an iPad

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Screenshot showing footnoted text in Pages on an iPad

According to its website description, the site is "an easy-to-use collection of all House of Commons discussions and debates about Canada’s environment."

The site suggests 4 different ways to access information:

1.Use the homepage to review featured topic summaries and debates from the previous sitting week.

2.Use the search box to query by topic, content or MPs involved in a debate or exchange in the House of Commons.

3.Browse debates by date or look for ones relating to specific categories.

4.Read topic summaries that provide an overview of the key points made in a debate or discussion.

The site appears to be very useful for anyone conducting environmental research.

If interested, set out below are my general comments on iPads along with a list of apps I most frequently use.

General iPad advice

1) Buy the iPad extended warranty, including the idiot's "drop"insurance. Within the first few days of getting the new iPad, I dropped it, smashing the screen and rendering it unusable. Fortunately, I had this insurance and I received my replacement unit via courier within 24 hours after paying the deductible of what I think was $45 stated in US dollars.

2) Cases / covers. I have yet to be happy with a good iPad cover. For my iPad 1, I liked the black Apple-brand "cloth" cover since it gave you something to easily grip while walking with it. Although the "smart cover" that works for the new models is "cool," I find it hard to grip the device when walking. I made the mistake of also buying a third-party leather cover that since turned out to be faux leather and which is now "stretched," thereby being slightly baggy and coming apart at the seams.

3) Keyboards: There were fewer external keyboard options for iPad 1, so I bought a Bluetooth Logitech keyboard whose sleeve also becomes a stand. With newer iPads, you can get keyboards where the iPad actually "clicks into" the keyboard or that is embedded in the cover/case, something that I think would be desirable. I highy recommend some sort of external keyboard.

4) Stylus pens. I find using a stylus on an iPad a bit gimmicky for writing or note-taking (with NoteTakerHD being perhaps the best app for handwriting notes). However, some of the drawing or art apps are quite fun. For serius note-taking, I would recommend an external keyboard over a stylus.

5) App sales for iTunes. There are generally good apps sales in iTunes whenever there is a US long weekend. Among other software vendors, Electronic Arts usually puts many of its game apps on sale for 99 cents during these events. I also recommend the free app called AppAdvice which contains a daily post called Apps Gone Free where you can sometimes find good free apps.

eBooks

Most of the ebooks I have purchased have come from Amazon for their free Kindle app for the iPad since I find they have a better selection, cheaper prices and better searching/filtering. However, for the last 2 books I purchased, I found they were cheaper from the iBook store.

I have also started to use the iBook reader for reading PDF documents, especially those that I have annotated using PDFReaderPro.

I have also started borrowing eBooks using Overdrive and my Toronto Public Library card (a maximum of 10 books at a time, for 21 day loan periods).

There have been previous SLAW posts on the various law-related ebooks in Canada from LexisNexis Canada, Westlaw Canada, and Irwin Law, along with the various law-related content available by subscription from the HeinOnline app. In the last week, the Law Society of Upper Canada has added the Ontario Reports app.

Note-taking / Writing

For note-taking in meetings, I use the online virtual keyboard or my external keyboard using the native Notes app. I like that app since it automatically date stamps your notes and it is easy to email youself the notes after the meeting.

While the Apple app called Pages has more features for formatting text, I find that the iPad is yet to be a complete laptop replacement for serious writing involving footnotes, block quotations, and tables.

For virtual keyboards, I really like the iA Writer app, which is the keyboard I wish the app had as is native virtual keyboard since it has the "forward" and back" arrows to move your cursor using the keyboard (since I find it hard to use your finger on the screen to precisely move the cursor to the desired point). The Dragon Dictation app is impressive but I have to admit not using it much (but wanting to).

Entertainment apps

Flixster is by far the best move schedule app (since it also includes Rotten Tomatoes reviews). For Cineplex movies, download the free TimePlay app to play what I used to think was that annoying game after the "pre show" at your movie screening. I say it used to be annoying since for the last 3 movies I have watched, I placed first at two movies and fourth at another, earning for each instance 100 Scene points, a free movie download and discounted drinks.

For TV watching, you can do quite well with the CTV, CBC, CityTV and GlobalTV apps. I find it in fact better to watch The Daily Show (with Jon Stewart) on the CTV app since there are fewer commercials.

I recently resubscribed to Netflix and find I am getting good value (they now have all 3 seasons of Arrested Development). There is also the entire Season 1 of a new mafia drama/comedy called Lilyhammer that I highly recommend. I also try to watch at least 2 or 3 TED talks every week.

Music apps

Garageband is of course amazing but I find the novelty wore off after trying it for awhile and I have been too busy to go back to it. The CBC Music app is highly recommended for "ad free" classical and jazz music.

News apps

There are a large number of free news apps Although I have tried a number of newspaper subscriptions using the "first 14 days free" option, I have yet to subscribe to any. For free news apps, the ones I consult the most are:

Google News (using the "Save to Home Screen bookmark)
CBC News
CTV News
The Globe and Mail
Toronto Star
National Post
Flipboard (using various RSS feeds)
Huffington Post
Slate
NPR

Planners

I have experimented with most of the well known GTD planning apps and have yet to be entirely satisfied. I purchased the expensive OmniFocus but found I stopped using it in favour of a simpler tool such as Next Things. Priority Matrix is visually pleasing and easily allows 4-qudrant planning.

Cloud Storage

I use Dropbox as my primary cloud storage device.

Travel apps

There are any number of travel apps. I of course use the AirCanada app, with Weathereye HD as being the best weather app.

Skype is of course great. I am also very impressed with the accuracy of iTranslate for translation.

I use both NextTTC and Rocket Radar to monitor the arrival or departure of Toronto buses or streetcars.

Game Apps – Most Heavily Used / Best Value

I usually play the following apps at least once daily:

New York Times Daily Crossword (a daily addiction)
Sudoku2HDPro
Scrabble
Moxie2
Puzzlejuice
Astraware Solitaire
CribbageHD
Phase10
Temple Run

Fun Game Apps but where the novelty wears off

Bejeweled 2
Bookworm
Color Bandits HD
DoodleJump
Family Guy
FC Rocket
FlightControl HD
Gesundheit
GTA 3
HeartsHD
Infinity Blade (and Infinity Blade 2)
Jetpack Joyride
Lara Croft HD
MonsterDash
Papertoss HD
Peggle
Pinball HD
Rainbow Six HD
Robokill (and Robokill 2)
Robot Unicorn Attack HD
Simpsons Arcade
Slayer HD Pinball
War Pinball HD (with voice overs from Chuck Norris)
World of Goo
Yahtzee HD

Zombie Games

I have most of the zombie games. Plants versus Zombies is of course a classic but I found once I completd it I no longer play it.

Call of Duty Zombies HD is amazing but I have not had much time to get into Call of Duty Black Ops Zombies. Zombie Gunship is fun as is Zombie Highway and Zombie Infection.

Other Games

The jury is still out on Scribblenauts and I just got Mass Effect Infiltrator but have yet to try it out.

The best car racing game is Real Racing 2 HD.

I highly recommend Machinarium.

Although I was initially against the "radical" change to remove periods from most citations, I have since come to prefer the simplicity of removing periods on citations to legal documents over which I have editorial control.

However, the focus of the guide (understandably) is on citation style for your footnotes when citing legal resources in your document. In my mind, however, there is some uncertainty on how the 7th edition might change normal grammar rules in the text of your document.

Here are some examples of issues I have encountered or questions I have been asked, followed by my proposed solutions (I welcome comments, especially if I am simply not finding the correct advice from the guide or if there is otherwise strong disagreement with my recommendations):

1) Use of "i.e." and "e.g." versus "ie" or "eg": Rule 1.4.2 of the McGill Guide suggests we are to not include a period at the end of "ibid" (an abbreviation for the Latin word ibidem, meaning "in the same place"). What then is one to do in your text when using the Latin abbreviations "i.e." for illud est (meaning "that is" or "namely") or "e.g." for exempli gratia (meaning "for example)?

In my mind, the following example without periods from the text of your document looks funny:

There are many advantages of a document management system having a good taxonomy for the way in which documents are profiled or described, starting from the creation of standard folders for client matters (eg, Accounts, Correspondence, Transaction Documents, Research, and so on).

Rule 6.43 of the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style advocates using periods for "e.g." or "i.e." (and followed by a commas and used only in parentheses); likewise, Rule 10.43 of Chicago requires a period to abbreviate "ibid."

Recommendation: Use "i.e." or "e.g." in the text of your document (or better yet: use plain English and avoid the use of Latin abbreviations all together).

2) Referring to the judge in your text: Rule 3.10 of the 7th edition of the McGill Guide advocates removing the period after the "J" in footnotes as an abbreviation for Judge (e.g., a fictitious example: ABC Ltd v Smith, 2009 ABCA 34 at para 21, Williams J).

However, what is one to do in the text of your legal document when referring to a judge, as in the following example?

In upholding the ruling of Smith J. at trial, the Court of Appeal emphasized the fact-intensive evidence that was presented.

Using only "Smith J" in the foregoing example (i.e., without the period after the "J") looks funny.

Recommendation: I am not sure what to do here so recommend avoiding the abbreviation all together by re-writing the sentence, as in:

Corrected: In upholding the ruling of Madam Justice Smith at trial, the Court of Appeal emphasized the fact-intensive evidence that was presented.

3) Other abbreviations or initials: Rule 3.9 of the 7th edition of the McGill Guide does away with periods in footnotes when referring to jurisdictions (e.g., two fictitious examples: Jones v Brown, (2004), 45 DLR (3d) 9 (BCCA) or Williams v Turner, 45 US 56 (1852)).

However, what does one do in the text of your document when referring to abbreviations for jurisdictions? Examples:

In the US, there are two approaches to determining liability . . . .

versus

In the U.S., there are two approaches to determining liability . . . .

or

The courts in BC have taken an expansive approach granting summary judgment . . . .

versus

The courts in B.C. have taken an expansive approach granting summary judgment . . . .

Rules 10.28 and 10.29 of The Chicago Manual of Style perhaps answer this one: in the text of your document, spell the province or state in full and abbreviate in footnotes or bibliographies using the appropriate postal or zip code abbreviation, without periods.

4) Use of Section versus "s": In this situation the McGill Guide is more helpful, although I find many legal writers get it wrong. In editing a document shortly after the release of the 7th edition, when I encountered the following sentence (or something similar to it), I was not sure what to do – period or no period?

In interpreting s. 12 of the Evidence Act, the court emphasized . . . .

Well, it is actually a trick example. Rule 2.1.10 of the McGill Guide states: Abbreviate section to s and sections to ss in the footnotes [i.e., with no period], but always write the full word in the text.

There you go. Thoughts?

Legal project management (LPM) has already been a popular topic on SLAW for some time now (click here for past stories).

Although the foregoing article is a shortened version of my longer paper from last year entitled "Project Management in Law Firms: A New Role for Librarians?" available on my website, in the 10 months or so between articles I have seen a steady and growing interest in LPM in Canadian law firms, particularly because the incentives are client-focused: to meet client demand for better value and legal fee certainty.

In these articles, I identify the following 8 possible roles for law librarians in LPM:

• Providing education and current awareness on LPM

• Assisting in the RFP process

• Helping to develop checklists

• Helping to embed precedents and research into project phases

• Evaluating and training on LPM software

• Supporting e-discovery management

• Assisting with after-action reviews

• Implementing project management on internal administrative projects

Whether you see LPM as merely an evolution of legal knowledge management or instead as a separate, distinct discipline, it is clear in my mind that there is a role to be played by law librarians. Even since the first article 10 months ago, I have been directly involved in 6 of these 8 LPM roles in my work to some extent (although I claim no personal success – some of this stuff is hard to do). I therefore encourage law librarians to leverage their skills to support LPM within their firms or organizations.

1) Roaming Charges Using your Canadian 3G SimCard Outside of Canada: Since I tend to be stingy (not a good quality), I have never tested using my Canadian 3G access while abroad. However, comments from others suggest it can be very expensive.

2) WiFi not as Common as One Might Think: Depending on your hotel chain of choice, I find that free WiFi is not always an option (and you should check in advance – many hotels list "WiFi availability" but it is often for a fee, as much as $15 per day). Free WiFi at airports can also be hit and miss. Likewise, although you can often find coffee shops on the street that provide free WiFi, if you are stuck in the middle of a city where there is no WiFi and need to use Google Maps or some other app, you are out of luck. I have experimented with Boingo to get paid WiFi access, but have not used it extensively.

3) Using a UK SimCard for 3G: While in the UK, I found a large number of mobile phone providers who provided "pay as you go" 3G iPad simcards. I ended up choosing a 1 GB pay as you go simcard from the Three store. The salesperson helped me to install it and set up an app so I could monitor usage. I found it useful to have Google Maps while riding double-decker buses to figure out where I was and where I was going.

4) Using a US SimCard for 3G: While in the US, I found it more of a challenge to acquire a US 3G simcard since most Internet chatter suggested you needed a credit card with a US mailing address to purchase a pay as you go simcard. However, at an AT & T store a salesperson suggested I could simply put in the mailing address of the US hotel where I was staying. I therefore purchased a simcard (a whopping $15 – I later learned I might have been able to negotiate a cheaper price or one for free from an Apple store, but that was not necessarily a convenient option for me). However, when trying to purchase the 3 GB per month pay as you go simcard, the online payment system would not accept my US hotel address for my corporate credit card. The salesperson then suggested trying my AMEX personal card, which did work (I have since seen some Internet chatter suggesting that prepaid US credit cards may also work). Ultimately, this worked out to being slightly cheaper than the hotel's WiFi and allowed online access while outside of the hotel.

5) Travel apps: There are no lack of iPad apps for travelling: see here, here, and here for some sample lists of travel apps. My most frequently used travel apps include Skype for iPad, WeatherEye HD, the Air Canada app, Yelp, and various subway maps, depending on which city I am in.

I welcome comments and other tips for travelling with an iPad. Of course, if purchasing simcards from abroad, do so at your own risk and make sure the salesperson understands your needs before commiting to any particular simcard or plan.

Now I need how to figure out how to stop the automatic renewal of my AT & T simcard . . . .

As a knowledge management (KM) lawyer / law librarian, my continuing legal education opportunities tend to focus more on conferences related to KM or law libraries, such as the upcoming annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries / L'Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit held in Toronto in May.

However, I think it was worthwhile attending LegalTech, although I might not need to attend every year. The main difference for me was the large number of technology vendors exhibiting or presenting their technology.

There were several themes I saw from the conference, including e-discovery and predictive coding, enterprise search, the use of iPads in legal practice (including mobile device management), and working in the cloud. Of these themes, e-discovery seemed to dominate.

Because my technology interests are currently not focused on e-discovery, I found many of the seminar sessions to be less relevant for me. That said, the keynote sessions were interesting and I enjoyed the session called iLove for the iPad: Tips, Tricks & Apps. From that session, I realized I am likely under-utilizing GoodReader for iPad, which – in addition to reading PDF files – also allows you to manage and transfer your files. A number of other PDF apps were mentioned, including PDF PROvider for iPad (which allows you to create PDF files) and PDF Expert (which lets you easily use PDF forms and signatures). The speakers also recommended the Atomic Web Browser as an alternative to the native iPad web browser since you have an option to have this web browser "mimic" your web browser of choice. I also likely taking notes in iWriter, mentioned by the speakers, since it has keyboard "arrows" allowing you to more accurately move the cursor on the screen). The other app I will likely explore is SoundNote, which records the speaker's voice and synchs up the recording with notes you are writing on the iPad. There is of course also the two high-end apps for lawyers, being TrialPad for iPad (which allows trial lawyers to easily use their iPad to present visual evidence to the court) and TranscriptPad for iPad (which allows you to easily review, tag, and annotate examination for discovery transcripts).

Ultimately, however, I found that perhaps the most useful thing to do was to meet with vendors and find out about their technology.

Included on the page are links to:

• online training video tutorials,

• legal research and writing journals, newsletters and selected articles,

• legal research and writing associations and blogs, and

• general teaching resources for teaching legal research and writing.

I suspect my page may not be complete, so if I have missed something, I welcome comments and suggestions for other resources.

I believe it may currently be the most complete, online collection of links and other resources for researching law reform commission reports. Included, of course, are links to the BC Law Institute Law Reform Database as well as links to individual law reform commission reports websites.

For the older, online Ontario Law Reform Commission Reports, I linked to the listings from the Open Library (sorted from most recent – currently 1976 – to oldest – currently 1965), which act as an "interface" linking to the digital versions on the Internet Archive.

I was also not previously familiar with an excellent online article by Gavin Murphy, "Law Reform Agencies" (Department of Justice, 2004) (PDF, 126 pages), linked to on this section of my site.

I welcome comments or suggestions for improvements.

__________________________

On an unrelated note, I added two "missing" movies to my list of 123 law-related movies:

• Evelyn (2004): Pierce Brosnan, as an unemployed, single-parent father in 1953 Ireland battling for custody of his children taken in by a Church-run orphanage

• Michael Clayton (2007): An obvious oversight on my part, with a stellar cast of George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson playing lawyers caught up in an environmental class action lawsuit.

The article of course is good and worth mentioning for that reason alone but Sarah's email made me realize I had forgotten about this online journal, which was mentioned a number of years ago on SLAW. As such, I thought I would also remind SLAW readers since many of the articles would be relevant to most of you. In the current edition, for example, articles include such titles as "Optimizing Our Teaching: Hybrid Mode of Instruction" and "Roaming Reference: Reinvigorating Reference through Point of Need Service."

I like that the journal has an open access policy, making it available to anyone and includes peer-reviewed articles.

Unfortunately, the journal does not appear to have RSS feeds, but I registered just now in order to be alerted to new issues.

Logging into the app is easy and users are invited to have their login and password information remembered.

Once logged in, one gets a table of contents of the various libraries in their database, depending on the scope of one's subscription (e.g., Law Library Journal, US Reports, English Reports, Legal Classics, and so on).

Browsing by law journal title and volume is easy to do. At that stage, there is an option of viewing the table of contents for the particular volume. The screenshot below shows the "view" of the first page of a recent article on HeinOnline from the Canadian Law Library Review written by SLAW's own Mark Lewis.

When viewing the articles in PDF, it is easy enough to expand the text or slide from page to page.

One can also search the full-text of the various libraries by keyword. The screenshot below shows the search example they use in their iTunes page, being:

<< title: "Right to Privacy" >>

This search, when run in the Law Library Journals library, returns articles with that phrase in the title of the article.

Prior to this app being available, I was accessing HeinOnline on my iPad using the Safari browser. The app is definitely easier and quicker.

So you want to go to law school?

In making your decision, I encourage you to closely examine your reasons for wanting to embark on this path and make sure you have considered the pros and cons of doing so. Law school is now quite expensive and involves 4 years of your life (3 years of law school plus typically 1 year of articling). As such, you should not make the decision lightly.

Many of the 10 tips that follow may give the impression that I am against you entering law school. That is not the case. However, I think you should be aware of some of the negative aspects of pursuing this option so that you are not surprised or disappointed later on in your career.

1) Examine your reasons:

Why do you want to go to law school? You need to examine your reasons and read as much as possible about law school and the legal profession.

If you are going to law school because you are not otherwise certain of what other educational or career path to take, this is not a good reason.

Likewise, if you are going to law school because you think you will make money, this is also not a good reason.

And even if your motives are noble and you want to work in a public law sphere helping underprivileged people, realize there are possible forces at play that may result in you not achieving this dream. In "Letter to a Law Student Interested in Social Justice" (2007) 1 DePaul Journal for Social Justice 7 at 9, for example, law professor William Quigley of Loyola University notes that, despite the best intentions of students to go to law school engage in social justice issues, there are a number of factors that result in students instead pursuing corporate careers:

Many come to law school because they want in some way to help the elderly, children, people with disabilities, undernourished people around the world, victims of genocide, or victims of racism, economic injustice, religious persecution or gender discrimination.

Unfortunately, the experience of law school and the legal profession often dilute the commitment to social justice lawyering.

The repeated emphasis in law school on the subtleties of substantive law and many layers of procedure, usually discussed in the context of examples from business and traditional litigation, can grind down the idealism with which students first arrived. In fact, research shows that two-thirds of the students who enter law school with intentions of seeking a government or public interest job do not end up employed in that work.

To this, I would also add the potential distorting influence of expensive law school tuition causing some law students to pursue seemingly more lucrative corporate careers in order to pay off their student debt (and I say "seemingly" more lucrative corporate career because law is not necessarily a high-paying career since only a select few earn the "big bucks" – see section 3 below for more on lawyer salaries).

In many situations, I think it is ideal if you are able to combine your undergraduate experience or other life passions with a law-related job on graduation from law school. For example, if your background is in science or engineering, it might make sense to pursue a legal career in patent law, if that is something that seems interesting. Alternatively, if your background is in criminology or government relations, perhaps a career in a legal aid clinic or working for the government might make sense. For me, it took me awhile to realize that what I enjoyed most about the law was the research and technology side of things, which led to me further graduate degrees in law and information studies, resulting in my work as a law librarian and knowledge manager.

The point here is to examine your motives for wanting to go to law school and speak to as many people as possible who work in the field to get a better sense of whether your motives are realizable.

2) See what lawyers do:

Don't go to law school based on some misapprehension of what you think lawyers do based on what you have seen on TV or in the movies.

Instead, if you have the chance, job-shadow lawyers in different work environments to see what they do on a daily basis. Visit a courthouse and sit in on trials. If possible, offer to volunteer as a legal aid clinic or international NGO. Likewise, although perhaps frowned upon by law school administrators, most law professors will not notice you are not a registered student if you sit in on a law school class to see what law school teaching is like.

In addition, once in law school, it is useful to try to work in the summer months after 1st and 2nd year law in one or more law-related organizations to get a sense of what lawyers do, The practice of law is generally quite different than law school and seeing what the practice of law is like while still in law school might help you decide what sort of legal career you will pursue on graduation.

And although the vast majority of lawyers are hard-working, admirable people who help others, realize that you would be joining a profession where lawyer jokes run rampant and the cover of Maclean's magazine proclaims that lawyers are rats.

3) Don't do it for the money:

It is a myth the lawyers are rich. While it may be that some lawyers earn a lot of money, the vast majority of lawyers do not. And although it is not fair to compare lawyers to doctors (for a variety of reasons), realize that lawyers in private practice on their own have no guarantee that they will be paid (unlike doctors who bill the government for their services and are generally paid automatically by the government).

Read the Canadian Lawyer magazine annual salary survey for more information on lawyer salaries (realizing the limitations of such surveys).

In the United States, there have been some interesting developments relating to the return on investment in legal education, the difficulty that US law grads having in landing jobs, and allegations that some law schools are misrepresenting their job placement statistics.

4) Law School Admission Test (LSAT) prep:

Entrance into Canadian or American law schools is generally based on applicants who have: (i) strong undergraduate grades (sometimes augmented by otherwise interesting prior life experience or "personal statements"), and (ii) strong LSAT scores.

I leave it up to individuals to decide whether to take formal LSAT prep courses or to do self-study. From my hazy recollection, I remember it being all about the ability to read and synthesis passages of text to answer questions about the text and to otherwise solve Dell Logic Problem type questions.

The LSAT is not without controversy since some argue that it is not necessarily a reliable indicator of whether the test-taker would do well at law school or as a practicing lawyer. In fact, there have been recent suggestions that the ABA may in fact drop the LSAT as an entrance requirement into North American law schools.

5) Financing:

The cost of Canadian law school education has risen dramatically in the last few years, with the University of Toronto Faculty of Law charging in the range of $25,000 per year tuition. When you multiple this by 3 years and add in living costs, the overall cost is significant.

Many if not most law school applicants will therefore either require student loans or financing from family or friends.

When considering applying to law school, make sure you can afford the financial commitment and that you have a reasonable plan to pay off any debt you incur.

6) Which law school?

In Canada, there are currently 22 law schools, plus the addition of new law schools in Kamloops, BC, at Thompson Rivers University and in Northern Ontario at Lakehead University.

In my opinion, you should not get hung up on the reputation of a particular law school since all of the Canadian law schools offer excellent programs and opportunities. For some, the Maclean's magazine ranking of top Canadian law schools is controversial due to the criteria used to judge schools.

Some law schools may have strengths in particular areas of law, and if you are interested in a particular type of law, investigate which law school would be best for that area of law. Tuition fees may unfortunately be a factor for some, given the recent sharp increase in law school tuition in Canada.

Some law schools are taking the initiative to adapt their curriculum to changing needs, such as recent innovations by Osgoode Hall Law School at York University to improve the scope and quality of legal education.

Also note the trend among many Canadian law schools to now award their graduates a J.D. or Juris Doctor degree (the name of the law school degree offered by U.S. law schools) instead of the traditional LL.B. degree that "real" Canadian lawyers get (a Canadian LL.B. degree is functionally equivalent to the U.S. J.D. degree – it simply means that the person has graduated from a 3-year law school program, post-undergraduate; by way of contrast, in the U.K., Australia and commonwealth-related African countries, an LL.B. usually means the person has graduated from a 4-year undergraduate program). Blame this on the University of Toronto, who – based on what I think was misguided infatuation of all things American at the time – seemed to feel that it had to become American in order to compete (and otherwise perhaps justify its tuition increases). As was hinted at earlier on SLAW, many of us with the Canadian LL.B. degree are relatively content and I don't think there was any confusion in the North American legal industry over the Canadian LL.B. degree.

7) 1st year:

In section 10 below I list out a number of "law school survival books" which include sections on specifically surviving first-year law.

In most law schools, first year law typically includes mandatory, year-long courses on core, substantive areas of law, including criminal law, tort law, property law, constitutional law and contract law.

Although first-year law for some can be a terrifying experience due to the large volume of hard-to-read 19th century old English cases one must read, it can also be an exciting time with lots of intellectual and social policy discussions among classmates and professors. Most law schools have also now veered away from 100% final exams for first-year law school courses to instead allow some "paper" assignments, which helps to take off some of the pressure of 100% final exams.

Some first-year students are not necessarily told about the "game" that many law professors play (see The Paper Chase for an entertaining view of first-year law at Harvard; I include this movie as one of my Top 10 movies on my Law-Related Movies website). This game can entail the professor providing students with a "casebook" of old English cases, many of which are contradictory or come to different conclusions on similar facts, and then peppering students with Socratic-like questions to probe why a judge may have decided the way he or she did.

One way of seeing the forest from the trees in all of this is to occassionally check legal treatises on the subject of your class to get a broader overview on a particular point. Alternatively, for many of the famous cases discussed in first-year law, there will often be case comments written in law journals that help explain the cases.

8) Upper years:

By way of contrast to first-year law, the second- and third-year of law school is comprised mainly of elective courses, many of which can be smaller, seminar-type courses, with opportunities to present on course-related topics or write papers. Many law schools will also require students in upper years to complete a "moot trial" and to also write a "major" paper in at least one of their courses.

My advice to students is to pick elective courses based on one of two criteria: (i) because the topic seems interesting, or (ii) because the professor is a good lecturer.

Students who have the benefit of doing a law-related summer job after first- or second-year law will often be able to more easily identify courses of interest when they return to school based on what they have discovered during their summer job. For example, every summer student who I have recommended take an advanced legal research course in upper years has, to a person, later thanked me for the recommendation since such courses can be life-savers during articling, a topic discussed in the next seciton.

9) Articling:

Articling is the term used in Canada to describe the apprenticeship process through which law school graduates must pass in order to be licensed to practice law.

Articling is typically heavily regulated by each provincial Law Society.

Although is it possible to graduate law school after three years and live a fruitful life without having articled and been called to the Bar, my advice is for graduates to article, even if they are uncertain whether they want to practice law. Having spent 3 challenging years in law school, it is worth it to article and be called to the Bar.

On graduation from law school, for those students wanting to practice law in Canada, you will need to article or "apprentice" in the province in which you want to practice law (there is no national or federal bar admission process). The articling process is typically 1-year long and includes a combination of work experience and writing and passing the bar examinations for the particular province. The work experience component usually involves work at a law firm or other approved law-related institution (including government departments, in-house corporate legal departments, and legal clinics). At some point during this year of work the articling student takes bar examination courses and writes the bar examinations at the end of the training. Successful completion of the work component and passing of the examinations then entitles the student to be "called to the Bar."

In the old days, it was harder to "transfer" to a different province to practice law, a process that often required either re-articling in the new jurisdiction or at least passing the bar examinations in the new jurisdiction. However, the Federation of the Law Societies of Canada has introduced a number of national regulatory initiatives to breakdown barriers between practicing law in different provinces.

A recent challenge, due in part to there being so many law school graduates combined with a limited number of articling positions (at least at the big "Bay Street" law firms), it is becoming harder for law school graduates to find articling positions. The Law Society of Upper Canada has in fact established a task force to study the issue.

10) Additional reading:

I encourage all prospective law students in Canada to read the following books, which provide more detailed information and other advice:

• Stephen M Waddams, Introduction to the Study of Law, 7th ed (Toronto: Carswell, 2010)

• Allan Hutchison, The Law School Book: Succeeding at Law School, 3d ed (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2009)

• Ramsey Ali et al, The ABC's of Law School: A Practical Guide to Success without Sacrifice (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2002)

Otherwise, if interested, click here for a listing of books on Amazon on the topic of legal education (realizing that most of these books are from an American point of view).

Let me know your thoughts or if you have any questions.

I am looking forward to testing out both new developments since I continue to more heavily integrate my iPad into the practice of law (in addition to amassing more Zombie games, including the highly addictive Call of Duty: Zombies HD; my joy in slaughtering zombies, albeit only in a video game app, is causing me concern, although there are apparently no moral issues in killing the undead).

The iOS 5 software update, which includes 200 new features, is being regarded as a big deal. Apple has a ton of information here (yes, largely promotional). Some of the features I am keen to try include iMessage, a new Reminders feature, the Newstand app (for managing newspaper and magazine subscriptions), and rich text email and and an improved Calendar. Plus there is the ability to synch wirelessly without the need to be connected to a PC.

On the other hand, it is harder for me to predict the impact on me of their new iCloud service. For what is described as a "hard drive in the sky," Apple will be providing 5 GB to users for free (with an option to pay more for extra space: for example, $100/year gets you an additional 50GB of space). Apparently, iCloud will keep your email, contacts, and calendars up to date across all devices, with no syncing required. SLAW has already commented on iCloud, including whether it stands to be a Dropbox killer. Of course, SLAW has also discussed the concern for legal professionals to ensure that client-confidential information is not at risk.

Interesting times.

What makes the seminar interesting is the variety in topics covered, including core research competencies and how to effectively approach research, traditional and non-traditional gathering paths, comparative research (the art of comparing and analyzing), foreign and international legal research, and advanced legislative research. In addition, there is what we are calling a "speed dating" session after lunch where each of the presenters will sit at a table and the attendees will move in small groups from table to table with each presenter giving one or two more research tips to their table.

While I or Shaunna may try to blog today on SLAW about the conference, I can't guarantee that. Instead, a number of people have promised to tweet at #lesaonline.

In addition, for legal professionals in the Edmonton area, we will be doingna live "repeat" of this seminar in Edmonton on October 13th.

In addition to the new LexisNexis Canada dockets service I mentioned last week, a colleague has pointed out the free Canadian Federal Courts dockets service at IPPractice.ca, a website maintained by Alan Macek of Dimock Stratton LLP, a great site that does not yet appear to have been mentioned on SLAW (there is also a blog on the site, here).

At the Federal Docket Browser on the site, you can enter the court file number (e.g., T-780-08) and be brought to a free results page that provides more enhanced information than the actual dockets page from the Court, including links to any published decisions in the matter, appeal information and detailed docket information. A great feature!

The site also includes a Federal Court Hearing List, although this information appears to simply mirror the hearing information on the Court's website.

I have updated the court docket information on my website to include both the LexisNexis Canada service and this free Federal Courts dockets service from IPPractice.ca.

From one intuitive online interface, LexisNexis CaseConnection Dockets enables fast access to key case information for ongoing and new proceedings filed with the Federal Court, Federal Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada. This information helps law firm, government and corporate professionals stay on top of emerging legal issues and cases quickly, cost-effectively and securely.

The press release was not clear on cost of the service, although registration here was free. I registered and there appears to be small charges for searching dockets or running saved searches to monitor docket activity. At this stage, it does not appear that one would be able to obtain the full-text of court filings from the Federal Court or Supreme Court of Canada (or at least the press release is silent on this point).

In addition, their litigation services appear to open the door to lawyers and law firms to serve court documents with an option to also sign up for their US court dockets service (trade-marked as CourtLink, a "fee" service I already use to access US court full-text court filings).

Having now mentioned this service on SLAW, I imagine I will be contacted by my LexisNexis Canada rep who may be able to provide more information or clarification at which point I can update this post in the comments if there is any additional information.

Practice Direction Regarding Filing of Judicial Decisions from Electronic Databases, and Regarding Citation of All Judicial Decisions

Practice Direction

Judicial Decisions from Electronic Databases

Effective October 1, 2011, copies of judicial decisions obtained from approved electronic databases are acceptable for filing provided the report of the judicial decision contains paragraph numeration consistent with the numbering of the paragraphs in the decision as released by the court. “Approved electronic databases” are databases that are dedicated to the publication of judicial decisions (e.g. Quicklaw, CanLII).

Parties should be aware that judicial decisions posted on electronic databases may be subject to correction or editing within a few days of the initial posting and, accordingly, parties should ensure that any decision obtained from an electronic database has not been subsequently amended.

Citation of All Judicial Decisions

Parties citing decisions from electronic databases should provide the citations for any paper versions of the decision in addition to the citation of the electronic database.

Parties should provide the date that the copy of any decision was obtained from an electronic database, as part of the citation information.

For decisions of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice released on or after January 1, 2010, parties should provide the neutral citation number (e.g. 2010 ONSC 1) in addition to the other required citations.

Osgoode Hall, Toronto
September 1, 2011

The Honourable Heather Forster Smith
Chief Justice, Superior Court of Justice

A few comments:

• "Approved electronic databases": The practice direction unfortunately gives what I assume is an unintentional, inadvertent limited view of examples by mentioning only Quicklaw or CanLII as approved electronic databases. Ideally, the practice direction would have preferred or encouraged the use of CanLII, where available, and then either referred more generically to the commercial databases or to include a more exhaustive listing (e.g., Westlaw Canada, BestCase, Maritime Law Book, SOQUIJ, DCL/REJB, and so on) or simply identified the major legal publishers as opposed to specific databases.

• Citation: I don't think I have a problem with including both a citation to the print-published version of a decision (if available) along with the online citation. I do find it interesting (and different) for the court to require "the date that the copy of any decision was obtained from an electronic database." If the court was going to otherwise change McGill Guide style, I would have liked if they had gone further to provide that, for decisions on CanLII, citing the neutral citation alone would be sufficient. In addition, the practice direction is ambiguous in its example of citing to the neutral citation for Ontario Superior Court decisions. A more preferable practice direction would have stated something along the lines that counsel are encouraged to file decisions from CanLII from all courts (not just Ontario) and when so doing may include only the neutral citation.

Despite these nit-picks, all-in-all this is a welcome and long overdue development.

Updated guides have also been added for Bhutan, Latin America, Kenya and Sweden.

I regularly use these foreign law guides (along with the international law guides) when doing international and foreign legal research.

One of the questions put to the panel in advance of the session was: "What kind of legal research skills should law school students be highly proficient in by the end of second or third year of law school?"

In recent years, I have started to have higher expectations of law school graduates and in many situations those expectations have been met.

However, the perennial problem remains: many law schools do not teach legal research and writing well, usually to no fault of the dedicated adjunct faculty or law librarians who often care quite strongly about the topic.

Although what follows is an over-simplification of the issue, here are some of the systemic challenges that highlight this problem and some proposed solutions:

• Casebook method: In first-year law, most students are given their reading material, often in the form of casebooks, lessening the need for them to "find the law" on their own. In addition, there is an emphasis in law school on case law over legislation (perhaps understandably so – cases make for more interesting reading). This emphasis often results with law school graduates being much less familiar with legislation and how to find it.

• Theoretical approach in law school: Many law schools emphasize the theory of law and are generally much less concerned with the nuts and bolts of legal practice and the practical tools that lawyers will need (exceptions exist, of course, such as the opportunity for students to work in legal clinics during law school).

• Lack of course credit: In first year, many – if not most – North American law school programs do not teach legal research and writing for course credit (in the same way that the other substantive first-year courses are taught). As a result, students will naturally focus on the "for credit" courses.

• Lack of qualified instructors: Most law schools do not employ full-time, tenured professors who are qualified to teach legal research and writing. This adds to a perception that legal research and writing is not as important and also results in a more disjointed curriculum on the topic. In many situations, competent practitioners or law librarians teach these courses, which helps, to a certain extent.

Despite these challenges, law students have a number of opportunities to develop their legal research and writing skills:

• Small group classes: In first-year, each law student is typically slotted into one "small group" class. In some situations, depending on the professor, the small group program may allow for students to learn about and apply some basic legal research and writing skills.

• Essay/paper assignments: In upper-years, most law students will take elective courses with essay/paper requirements requiring original research and appropriate writing format/McGill Guide citation.

• Mooting: Although many mooting programs in law school provide students with "canned" material, some programs require students to spend a fair bit of time researching the law and writing a proper factum in support of their oral arguments.

• Upper year "Advanced" legal research and writing courses: I always encourage 2nd-year law students who have "summered" at a law firm to consider taking an Advanced legal research course in their final year. For those students who did, to a person, they have thanked me for the advice and were very glad that they did. The irony, of course, is that these upper-year courses are often call "Advanced" when in fact many students will not have received the "basics" in first-year.

For students who have graduated law school and are starting to article at a law firm, government department or corporate legal department, these are the following legal research and writing skills I would expect them to have:

• Analysis: I expect law school graduates to be able to analyze legal issues and be able to determine legally relevant facts given a particular problem.

• Secondary resources: I expect law school graduates to be able to find leading and relevant treatises, journal articles, CLE papers, and encyclopedia articles. They should also be familiar with Words and Phrases services.

• Cases: I expect law school graduates to be able to find cases by topic and by citation and to effectively note-up cases and be able to analyze the note-up results to prioritize the citing cases. To find cases by topic, I expect them to be able to do so in one of many ways before they search full-text on an online case law database (e.g., they should know how to use case law digests, how to mine the footnotes in leading treatises and journal articles for leading cases, and so on).

• Legislation: I expect law school graduates to be able to understand the division of powers, the legislative process, and how to find and note-up legislation. Ideally, they will also be familiar with basic statutory interpretation. I also expect them to be able to find cases considering a particular section of a statute, regulation or court rule.

• Online searching and information literacy: I expect law school graduates to be able to effectively search the major online commercial databases and to know how to evaluate the reliability of free sources of online information.

• Writing: I expect law school graduates to have strong writing skills and to be familiar with memo and factum writing. I also expect them to be familiar with the current version of the McGill Guide.

What I have missed? Am I expecting too much? What should we expect of law school graduates?

I welcome comments, which I of course will factor into the discussion at the panel session next week.

The 84-page complaint is available here (PDF) and makes for interesting, if not depressing, reading. Included in the complaint as part of the factual background is an overview of the abuse that has occurred in Canada, Ireland and the United States.

A New York Times story about this filing suggests, perhaps correctly, that it is "unlikely the complaint against the Vatican would fit the court’s mandate to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide."

Nonetheless, the allegations raise serious issues and it will be interesting to see if the ICC will assume jurisdiction and open a file and investigate the allegations.

Thanks to law librarian Christina López at Pitblado LLP in Winnipeg for mentioning a 1931 movie directed by Fritz Lang called "M."

I have added an entry for this movie to my list of law-related movies, which sort of makes a nice counterpart to the movie "Z," earlier recommended by one of the Simons.

I haven't seen the movie and I suspect it may be hard to rent (Christina mentioning she saw it years ago at a revival movie theatre in Montreal).

It tells the story of a child murderer in Germany and the police hunt to track him down, resulting in a "staged" trial used to force a confession from the accused and obtain a conviction, making the point of the importance of legal representation in criminal trials to ensure justice, even for the most abhorrent crimes.

2) iPad Apps:

My new favourite app is Zite, a free "personalized iPad magazine." It is similar in a way to the award-winning free Flipboard but works in a slightly different manner and truly is a personalized magazine.

As explained on the Zite FAQ page, the makers of Zite explain how their app is different:

Zite makes it easy by tapping into your Google Reader and Twitter history and paying attention to how you interact with the articles you read. Zite gets to know you better and better over time.

. . .

Zite is the first iPad news reader to go beyond manual customization and make use of more powerful technology to provide an individually personalized experience. Your days of wasting time sifting through bad information are over.

Even though I don't have a Twitter account (yes, Teddy don't Twitter), logging into my rarely used Google Reader account got Zite populating itself with what it thought was relevant content based on my RSS feeds (content related to law, technology and knowledge management). In addition, the app provides categories that can be used to generate content and you can also enter your own categories. Here is a screenshot showing my home page, with "clickable" categories down the right side that will filter the stories by categories.

And although I cannot in any way justify a post on SLAW on zombies or relate zombies to legal research, I need to also mention my new, favourite time waster: Zombie Gunship HD. Of all the zombie games on the iPad (and yes, I have a folder on my iPad called Zombie Games), this is now my favourite.

The article quotes me and fellow SLAW contributor Dominic Jaar, but what I like about the article are the viewpoints from others in the industry and the wide range of tips and advice on best practices.

What I find with knowledge management is that there is usually never a single approach or method and varies a fair bit depending on the type of organization, its culture and staffing.

In fact, there has been lots of discussion in the past several years as to whether knowledge management is dead or not.

I prefer to think it is alive, but evolving, with many in legal knowledge management increasingly getting involved with the other "management" aspects of law practice, including risk management, project management and client management.

With knowledge management, however, I have often wondered if it is perhaps time to describe knowledge management in better terms (particularly since it seems slightly oxymoronic to think about "managing" knowledge – can you manage knowledge?). At the SLA conference this year in Philadelphia colleague Katharine Thompson attended a workshop by Guy St. Claire and others of SMR-Knowledge.com where there was discussion on using the "Knowledge Services" as better describing what we do (especially since we are in a service industry). I find "Knowledge Services" to somehow seem fresher than "Knowledge Management."

How important is the name or description of what we do?

In part because I came to knowledge management through law practice as a lawyer, researcher and law librarian, what I feel most strongly about in Luigi's article is the notion of "integrated" services – that it is best to not distinguish between library, legal research, precedents, training and the other aspects of information and knowledge management. It truly should be a one-stop shop for information, whether from internal memos or precedents or from external databases or other sources.

Here are a few more pet peeves or commonly seen grammar errors:

1) Commas in Pairs (Rule 6.17, Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed)

Whenever a comma is used to set off an element, a second comma is required if the phrase or sentence continues beyond the element being set off:

– Incorrect: Judy went to Italy on June 15, 2004 to eat pasta.
– Correct: Judy went to Italy on June 15, 2004, to eat pasta.

You need a comma after the year in the example above (and yes, I realize the meaning in the sentence could be conveyed more easily by rewording the sentence).

2) Superscript is evil

According to the McGill Guide and my dainty sensibilities, legal citation and legal writing more broadly should not use superscript.

Your Microsoft Word may default to convert ordinal numbers to superscript:

– Incorrect: 14^th
– Correct: 14th (McGill Guide, Rule 3.7.3)

You can change the default settings using the “Word” button in the upper left of Microsoft Word and choosing “Word Options and then selecting “Proofing” and “Auto-correct” options.

Never use superscript in legal documents, especially in case citations.

3) Do not use “et al” in a case citation (McGill Guide, Rule 3.3.1)

– Incorrect: Brown et al v ABC Systems (1985), 42 OR (3d) 112 (CA)
– Correct: Brown v ABC Systems (1985), 42 OR (3d) 112 (CA)

[note: the case is fictitious]

4) Prefer single spaces after periods

Any number of leading authorities call for a single space after periods (these authorities are summarized by Matthew Buttrick in Typography for Lawyers at 43 and include the Chicago Manual of Style and Bryan Garner).

This point was already made on SLAW a few years ago.

Word processors are designed for single spaces after periods. The habit of putting two spaces after a period dates back to monospaced type on old-fashioned typewriters.

Addition: since posting, I remembered one more:

5) Pin point citations to cases

Rule 3.6 of the McGill Guide is clear: the pinpoint citation (to a paragraph or page number) always precedes the parenthetical jurisdiction and court:

– Incorrect: Brown v ABC Systems (1985), 42 OR (3d) 112 (CA) at para 5.
– Correct: Brown v ABC Systems (1985), 42 OR (3d) 112 at para 5 (CA).

I am therefore creating this post to document a fairly complete list of authorities that support what I think is the better (if not obvious) view: never use "and/or" in legal writing (or any writing). And yes, I said "never."

The Abomination that is "And/Or"

Although there is some support for "and/or," the weight of authority is against its use, primarily for two reasons: (i) its use can result in uncertainty, (ii) it is not a real word.

I definitely fall into the camp of those who "wax indignant" over its use (these are Ken Adams's words at p 109 of his Legal Usage in Drafting Corporate Agreements (Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 2001). And even though Adams seems to tolerate on the same page the convenience of "and/or" as merely "one of the more benign drafting evils" (in appropriate circumstances where it does not result in ambiguity), he "tends to avoid using and/or" in his own drafting (he also provides more commentary, and examples, in his book A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting, 2d ed (Chicago: ABA Section of Business Law, 2008) at paras 10.56 to 10.60).

Otherwise, the strongest support in favour of "and/or" that I have found comes from my copy of Fowler's Modern English Usage, 3d ed (London: Oxford University Press, 2000), where it is suggested that "and/or" was first recorded in the mid-19th century in legal contexts (hardly a reason to support its continued use). The phrase is described as "a formula denoting that the items can be taken either together or as alternatives." The text further notes that it is "still employed from time to time in legal writing" but then notes it "verges on the inelegant when used in general writing" and that the "more comfortable way of expressing the same idea is to use 'X or Y or both,' or, in many contexts, just 'or.'" (p 53).

In my opinion, the better view is to simply avoid "and/or" all together, as suggested by a number of leading authorities:

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Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), Rule 5.220 at 266:

• and/or. Avoid this Janus-faced term. It can often be replaced by and or or with no loss in meaning. Where it seems needed . . . , try or . . . or both (take a sleeping pill or a warm drink or both). But think of other possibilities . . . .

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William Strunk Jr & EB White, Elements of Style, 4th ed (New York: Longman, 1999) at 40:

• and/or. A device, or shortcut, that damages a sentence and often leads to confusion or ambiguity.

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Bryan A Garner (with Jeff Newman and Tiger Jackson), The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style (St Paul, MN: West Group, 2002), Rule 1.80 at 43:

• The slash . . . has few uses in formal writing except with dates and fractions. It is best known as the star character in two grammatical abominations: and/or and he/she. It is especially unfit for legal writing because it is inherently ambiguous.

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Bryan A Garner, The Elements of Legal Style, 2d ed (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) at 103:

• and/or. Banish from your working vocabulary this "much condemned conjunctive-disjunctive crutch of sloppy thinkers" (citing Raine v Drasin, discussed below) . . . .

  The word or usually includes the sense of and:

  No food or drink allowed.

  That sentence does not suggest that food or drink by itself is disallowed while food and drink together are OK . . . .

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Robert C Dick, Legal Drafting in Plain Language, 3d ed (Scarborough, ON: Carswell, 1995), Rule 10 at 107-11:

• Never use "and/or."

  This linguistic aberration is dealt with harshly by the courts . . . .

  The eye tends to trip and stumble over this symbol. It has been promulgated largely by those who either have not taken the trouble to decide, or cannot make up their minds, which of the two words they mean.

Even in the French language, the phrase "and/or" appears to be an abomination. Robert Dick, in the book above (at 111), cites the following French commentary against the use of "and/or" (from a jurist who later went on to become a Supreme Court of Canada judge):
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Louis-Philippe Pigeon, Redaction et interpretation des lois (Quebec: University of Lavel, 1965) at 28:

• "Et/ou" est tout simplement inadmissible . . . . L'utilisation de cette conjunction, qui n'en est pas une, est une chose qui répugne au génie de la langue, aussi bien en anglais qu'en français. Il faut prendre le temps de réfléchir et construire la phrase de façon à ne pas recourir à cet artifice.

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For additional commentary, see the following articles (from oldest to most recent):

• "An And/Or Symposium" (1932) 18 ABA Journal 456, 524, 574 (editorials).

• "And/Or: Its Uses and Abuses" (1935-36) 42 West Va LQ 235

• "And/or" (1939) 118 ALR 1367.

• WT Bie, "Ambiguous Language in Insurance Policies" (1945) Ins LJ 653.

• "And/or" (1945) 154 ALR 866.

• Worth Allen, "Literary Fraction And/or" (1947) 24 Dicta 273.

• Dwight G McCarty, "That Hybrid and/Or" (1961) 66 Com LJ 280.

• Kermit L Dunahoo, "Avoiding Inadvertent Syntactic Ambiguity in Legal Draftsmanship" (1970-1971) 20 Drake L Rev 137.

• Maurice B Kirk, "Legal Drafting: The Ambiguity of 'And' and 'Or'" (1971) 2 Texas Tech Law Review 235.

• "Some Cases on 'And/or'" (1994) 31 Clarity 21.

• David Elliott, "The Orians, the Andians and the Andorians" (2004) 51 Clarity 10.

• Kenneth A Adams & Alan S. Kaye, "Revisiting the Ambiguity of and and or in Legal Drafting" (2006) 80 St John's Law Review 1167.

• Bryan A Garner, "Looking for Words to Kill? Start with These" (2006) 35 Student Lawyer 12.

• Roger Shuy, "Legal Uses of And/Or…or Something" Language Log (blog) (April 17, 2008), http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=47.

I also highly recommend Bryan Garner's Legal Writing in Plain English: A Text with Exercises (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001) for the exercises he has for rewriting sentences using "and/or" into sentences using proper English. Despite my conniption fits over "and/or," I acknowledge it is not always obvious how to best replace "and/or" with either "and" or "or" or some other word or re-phrasing (there: I did it, three instances of "or" in a row in a sentence). But that is really the whole point of plain English in legal writing: figure out what you are trying to say and then use the most appropriate wording – don't be lazy and simply use "and/or" when, without too much effort, you can derive better wording. I highly recommend the article by Kermit Dunahoo (above) on the complexity of meanings of "and" and "or." Ruth Sullivan in Statutory Interpretation, 2d ed (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2007) at 81-82 also has a good discussion on the meaning of "and" and "or."

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Case Law Critical of "And/Or"

Criticism of "and/or" is not limited to commentary in secondary resources.

Judges have been vociferous in noting its ambiguity.

Set out below is a selected list of cases, listed from oldest to most recent, where courts have been critical of "and/or" (note: many of the cases below were noted by either Garner or Dick in their books above; other cases I have come across on my own). To me it is significant that the cases come from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia – the criticism is widespread.

I am somewhat mortified that the Ontario Court of Appeal in the 1985 decision below suggests that there may be a role for "and/or" if properly used (however at the same time as being critical of the term).

Of the criticisms below, my favourites are likely "bastard conjunction," a "bastard sired by indolence," and "the much condemned conjunctive-disjunctive crutch of sloppy thinkers." You also can't go wrong with "Janus-faced verbal monstrosity."

Note: the cases that follow are by no means exhaustive.

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1909: Clergue v Vivian & Co (1909), 41 SCR 607 at 617

[Although this case was not a case of "and/or" the Court makes the point that these words, when used separately, are flexible enough to convey the intended meaning, in this situation to interpret the phrase "to myself or assigns" to really mean "to myself and assigns"]

There is no doubt of the intention of the parties; and, where sense requires it, there are many cases to shew that we may construe the word “or” into “and,” and “and” into “or,” in order to effectuate the intent of the parties.

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1932: Cochrane v Florida East Coast Ry Co, 145 So 217 at 218-19 (Fla 1932):

In the matter of the use of the alternative, conjunctive phrase ‘and/or,’ it is sufficient to say that we do not hold this to be reversible error, but we take our position with that distinguished company of lawyers who have condemned its use. It is one of those inexcusable barbarisms which was sired by indolence and dammed by indifference, and has no more place in legal terminology than the vernacular of Uncle Remus has in Holy Writ. I am unable to divine how such senseless jargon becomes current. The coiner of it certainly had no appreciation for terse and concise law English.

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1932: Putnam v Industrial Commission, 80 Utah 187, 14 P 2d 973 at 983 (Utah 1932):

We venture the assertion that any man who knows the meaning of the two words and the established distinctions in their use can take a modern contract or statute, bristling with this symbol, strike out every one of them and substitute the proper one of the two words, to the great clarification of the meaning of the instrument or act.

In short, we believe the symbol to be a device for the encouragement of mental laziness even in the drafting of private contracts, but against its use in pleadings and court proceedings and in legislative acts or in either of the foregoing categories.

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1933: Underhill v Alameda Elementary School District, 133 Cal App 733 at 736(1933):

It is alleged “that plaintiff and other children of tender and delicate years were taking part in such game and/or were playing in the immediate vicinity of such game” and that “larger pupils” were participating in the game. We believe these allegations are wholly insufficient. We pause to point out that it is impossible to tell whether plaintiff was a participant in the game or was playing in the immediate vicinity. This may not be of vital importance on the consideration of the general demurrer, but we deem it appropriate to call attention to the confusion brought about by the misuse of the term “and/or”.

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1935: Bell v Wayne United Gas Co, 181 SE 609 at 618 (W Va 1935), dissenting judge (on other grounds):

The involvements of the contract are accentuated by the frequent use of the baffling symbol “and/or”-a disingenuous modernistic hybrid, inept and irritating.

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1935: Employers Mut Liability Co v Tollefsen, 263 NW 376 at 377 (Wis 1935):

[in the context of an insurance policy insuring "Smith and/or ABC Company].

It is manifest that we are confronted with the task of first construing “and/or,” that befuddling, nameless thing, that Janus-faced verbal monstrosity, neither word nor phrase, the child of a brain of some one too lazy or too dull to express his precise meaning, or too dull to know what he did mean, now commonly used by lawyers in drafting legal documents, through carelessness or ignorance or as a cunning device to conceal rather than express meaning with view to furthering the interest of their clients. We have even observed the “thing” in statutes, in the opinions of courts, and in statements in briefs of counsel, some learned and some not.

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1938: Sproule and/or Fidelity Life Ins Co v Taffe, 294 Ill App 374, 13 N.E.2d 827 (1938):

[Note: The court found void a lease where the landlord was described as "Charles J. R. Sproule and/or the Fidelity Life Insurance Company"]

We have many times condemned in unmeasured terms the use of “and/or” as a “confusing fad,” “accuracy destroying symbol,” “pollution of the English language,” that “barbarism,” “unsightly hieroglyphic,” “verbal teratism,” and other terms of a similar character that we could think of up to this time . . . . Many courts of other jurisdictions have, in like terms, condemned the use of this symbol . . . .

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1942: In re Bell, 122 P 2d 22 at 29 (Cal 1942):

The uncertainty surrounding their conviction arises from the ambiguity of the complaint, which charged them with violating any one ‘and/or’ any other provision of the ordinance, count 1 referring to section 2 and count 2 referring to section 3. Petitioners were in effect charged with violating all the provisions of each section of the ordinance or any one provision of each section. They were found guilty ‘as charged’ and sentenced ‘on said conviction.’ It cannot therefore be determined from the face of the record whether or not they were found guilty of violating the one valid provision of section 3.

The expression ‘and/or’, which made possible a conviction couched in such general terms, has met with widespread condemnation . . . . It is true that the expression has proved convenient in contracts and other instruments where, by its intentional equivocation, it can anticipate alternative possibilities without the cumbersome itemization of each one . . . . It lends itself, however, as much to ambiguity as to brevity. Thus it cannot intelligibly be used to fix the occurrence of past events. A purported conclusion that either one or both of two events occurred is a mere restatement of the problem, not a decision as to which event actually occurred. If a person is accused of violating an unconstitutional as well as a constitutional provision of a statute and the verdict by the use of ‘and/or’ declares him guilty of violating either one or both provisions, it is an open question whether he is guilty of any punishable offense. The verdict in effect states that the accused is guilty or innocent of violating the constitutional provision.

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1942: In re Lewis, [1942] Ch 424 at 425, per Farwell J:

The expression "and/or" is unfortunate. I do not think I have met it before in a will, and I hope I shall never meet it again.

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1944: Bonitto v Fuerst Bros, [1944] AC 75 at 82 (HL) per Viscount Simon:

Para. 18 stated the alternative claim in a variety of phrases, separated from one another by the repeated use of the bastard conjunction "and/or" which has, I fear, become the commercial court's contribution to basic English.

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1948: Gray Coach Lines Ltd v Bell Telephone Co, [1948] OWN 205

Our Courts have more than once expressed dislike of the expression "and/or" . . . .

I cannot see how, if the words 'and/or' are construed in this way, so as to give them both a conjunctive and disjunctive mean ing, the pleading is evasive. Pleading in the alternative is not objectionable unless it is in such form as to be embarrassing.

It remains to be determined whether in the present case the expression "and/or" is evasive and, consequently, embarrassing.

. . . .

An order will go striking out of para. 4 either of the words in the expression "and/or" at the option of the plaintiff, with leave to amend the paragraph as advised.

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1950: Looke v Parbury Henty & Co Pty Ltd, [1950] VLR 94 at 98:

"I agree that the expression `and/or' is commonly an indication that the draftsman is not clear in his own mind about the matters with which he has to deal . . . ."

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1956: Neame v Neame's Trs, [1956] SLT 57:

But it would be most unfortunate if a confusing expression such as `and/or' were to become a common feature in Scottish marriage contracts or testamentary settlements (Lord Clyde at 62).
. . . .

I would venture to add that in my judgment the phrase `and/or' is at best a loose and ambiguous term which would be better not to be used in formal legal writs affecting patrimonial interests (Lord Russell at 64).

. . . .

The expression `and/or' is not a happy one and, if occurring in a simple gift, might give rise to a serious problem of construction (Lord Sorn at 64).

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1957: Shadden v Cowan, 213 Georgia 29, 96 SE 2d 608 at 30-31 (1957):

The petitioners bring this action for injunctive relief, alleging themselves to be ‘patrons of the Cartersville public school system and/or taxpayers of the City of Cartersville.’ The use of the equivocal term ‘and/or’ has been often criticized . . . . In the instant case, the petitioners do not allege themselves to be patrons of the Cartersville public school system or taxpayers of the City of Cartersville. They do not state in what capacity they seek equitable relief. Before they would be entitled to maintain a cause of action as taxpayers against the defendants, they must allege that they are in fact taxpayers and must allege facts to show that they are entitled to the relief sought. Likewise, to maintain an action as patrons of Cartersville's public schools, they must positively allege that they are such patrons and as such are entitled to the relief for which they pray. The fact that an action might be maintained by taxpayers or that an action might be maintained by patrons of a public school system, provided sufficient facts are alleged to show that complainants are entitled to the relief sought, will not save the instant petition from dismissal where it fails to allege positively what in fact is the petitioners' basis for seeking equitable relief. Where, as here, they seek to predicate their right to bring their action as members of a class, they must allege positively that they belong to such a class as would be authorized to maintain the action.

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1965: John G Stein & Co Ltd v O'Hanlon, [1965] AC 890 at 904:

The symbol 'and/or" is not yet part of the English language.

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1976: Klecan v Schmal, 241 NW 2d 529 at 533 (Neb 1976):

With reference to the use of the phrase ‘and/or,‘ we have stated in connection with the drafting of statutes that the use of the phrase is not to be recommended as it leads to uncertainty, ambiguity, and multiplicity . . . . Nevertheless the phrase is still frequently, though perhaps not advisedly, used in the preparation of contracts, negotiable instruments, and similar documents. Where so used, the commonly accepted meaning is that ‘and/or’ means either ‘and’ or ‘or,‘ or both.

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1981: Raine v Drasin, 621 SW 2d 895 at 905 (Ky 1981):

[T]he much condemned conjunctive-disjunctive crutch of sloppy thinkers.

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1985: Higgins v Orion Insurance Co (1985), 50 OR (2d) 352 (CA):

The difficulty in ascertaining the precise coverage intended by the policy is reflected by these various interpretations. This is hardly a surprising consequence of the use of the expression "and/or". That term has often created confusion and ambiguity and for many years has been the subject of frequent criticism. It has been condemned as "a confusing hybrid", "a grammatical monstrosity", "a bastard sired by indolence (he by ignorance) out of dubiety", and "an unfortunate expression which I have not met before and which, I hope, I may never meet again" . . . . Nonetheless, the expression has enjoyed increased usage in contracts and other legal documents, and when properly used can serve as a convenient abbreviation to avoid clumsy circumlocation. A court's duty, of course, is to interpret the term so as to best express the true intention of the parties to the transaction. The interpretation to be afforded it must in each instance depend upon the circumstances under which it was used. In the context of a dispute arising out of a policy of insurance, if the term should create an ambiguity then by the familiar rule of interpretation the ambiguity will be construed most favourably to the insured.

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1989: California Trout Inc v State Water Resources Bd, 255 Cal Rpter 184 at 194 (note 8):

"'And/or' is taboo" in legislative drafting.

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1998: Moage Limited, [1998] FCA 296, (1998) 153 ALR 711

In my opinion, the expression is particularly unhappy when it is used in a statement of claim, which should express precisely the foundation of the proceeding. In the present case, as has been explained, an almost endless series of additional and alternative allegations would be conveyed by an analysis of the claim made in this way . . . .

The loosely framed drafting of paragraph 215A simply sweeps these problems under the carpet by alleging that Mallesons was aware of facts by Holland and/or Stumbles and/or Humphry and/or Halstead and/or Warnick. But there is a real question whether the knowledge of, say, Holland could affect the question whether Halstead was in breach of fiduciary duty or negligent.

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1998: Sandman v Farmers Ins Exch, 969 P 2d 277 at 281 (Mont 1998):

Aside from observing that the use of this much-maligned and overused conjunctive-disjunctive reflects poor draftsmanship and generally should be avoided, we are, nonetheless, unpersuaded that the use of "and" and "or" with the slash is any more correct or any less confusing than without the slash. According to the legal commentators, when used together with "and," the word "or" usually includes "and" and the "and/or" phrase means "either or both of." Inclusion of the "/" would not have corrected any error, ambiguity or confusion already inherent in the use of the "and" "or" conjunctive-disjunctive.

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2007: Philip Services Corp v City of Seattle, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 14906 at para 21 (2 March 2007, SD Tex)

The potentially confusing uses of "and" and "or" has long been noted [by] students of legal writing.

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2010: St Clair v Timtalla Pty Ltd Anor (No 2), [2010] QSC 480 at para 11:

The pleading is replete with the device “and/or” which was accurately described by Viscount Simon . . . as the “Bastard conjunction” which was the “commercial courts contribution to basic English”. The term has generally been regarded as unacceptable in commercial documents and more so in pleadings.

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I welcome comments or criticisms. I also welcome comments and criticisms.

But I certainly don't welcome comments and/or criticisms.

At the root of this is the need to think strategically about the problem to identify what sort of problem it is and how to best break it down into manageable pieces.

In retrospect, I realize that I in fact don’t necessarily address this challenge head on in my book, aside from citing some of the suggestions on how to analyze the facts and the law made by Maureen Fitzgerald in her Legal Problem Solving – Reasoning, Research & Writing (now in a 2010 5th ed from LexisNexis Canada). I highly recommend her book for this purpose since she has some useful exercises that can be helpful for students to work through. I also recommend McCallum et al's Synthesis: Legal Reading, Reasoning and Writing in Canada, 2d (Toronto: CCH Canadian, 2008) since applying the law to the facts – synthesis – is also part of the challenge and this book provides useful commentary on this aspect. More broadly, prior to being a lawyer, I used to be an avid reader of Edward de Bono’s work on thinking, including vertical, horizontal and parallel thinking, along with his “Six Hats” approach to thinking, and would like to re-read his work with an eye to seeing how applicable it would be to thinking strategically about legal problems.

In the meantime, set out below is the advice I usually give to law students or young lawyers on how to think strategically when conducting legal research.

1) Law school ≠ real life

One reason law students or young lawyers are uncertain how to strategically think about legal research is that law schools typically present artificially simplified problems that are never as complex as real-life problems.

A typical law school course focuses on only a single area of law (e.g., contract law). As such, research assignments or exam questions will tend to focus only on that topic and will often be based on a limited scope of cases previously studied in the course. The reality, however, is that real life problems tend to be messy and complex and may involve multiple areas of law with lots of issues and complicating factors with there being no obvious, defining body of cases or commentary limited to the particular problem. Instead of getting a "contract law" problem in law school limited to the contract cases discussed in the course, imagine a real-life scenario where the client, in a rental car in a foreign country, gets involved in a car accident with a diplomat from a third country where the client was drinking and his infant daughter was injured in the accident. What areas of law might be relevant? (Among other areas: conflict of laws, tort / negligence law, contract law, insurance law, crown law / foreign government immunity, the law of infants, and so on). In this example, although the parties involved and the issues are not that complicated, it is typical of real life legal problems that span more than the limited topic of a single law school course.

2) Embrace the challenge

Rather than stress over difficult research assignments, embrace the challenge and seek out as many research assignments as possible. Many if not most articling students or young lawyers are extremely bright but may lack confidence due to lack of experience. Struggling with complex research problems is a good way of flexing your analytical skills to engage in challenging work, which by default will lead to more experience and more confidence. Most senior lawyers do not assign easy problems (if the problem were easy, they likely wouldn't need you to research it). Likewise, when clients ask their law firms for help, it is usually because the situation is novel and complex and requires new ways of thinking to achieve a good solution. And in many situations – believe it or not – the student or junior lawyer may have better research skills than the senior lawyer and bring a perspective to the problem different than the assigning lawyer.

3) Research anxiety is normal

It can sometimes reduce stress by realizing that “research anxiety” is a known phenomenon that is experienced across a wide range of researchers. You are not alone. I have earlier blogged here on SLAW on reducing anxiety in the legal research process and on the research of Professor Carol Kuhlthau and recommend her writing on this topic. There are many stages to the research process and confidence levels will ebb and flow, depending on what stage you are at. From the law librarian's perspective, we neecd to identify those stages when the researcher is experiencing a high level of uncertainty to help them through the process.

4) It gets easier with experience

If a particular problem seems insoluble or overly complex, realize that things get easier with experience. While that advice does not necessarily help you solve a particular problem if you don't have a lot of experience, it might help to know that you will get better at legal research the more you do it. Most second or third year associates looking back at their articling experience will be surprised by how much they learned and that the unsolvable problems they faced as articling students would no longer be as much as a challenge (if at all).

5) Put yourself in the client's shoes

Since we are trained as lawyers we tend to think that all problems are legal problems. However, most clients don't necessarily see it as a legal problem but instead see it as a business problem. Like the example used by Susskind: Black & Decker sales reps, when shown one of their drills and asked if this is what they sold, were incorrect in answering "yes" when in fact what they were selling was the solution of what their customers wanted – a hole in the wall (or board). For many research problems, it may then help to step back and think like the client – what solution does the client want to solve their business problem? How can you help come up with that solution? The client is paying for advice leading to a solution. Producing a research memo for the sake of summarizing the law does no good to the client if it otherwise does not lead to an informed decision that results in likely outcomes or recommended solutions for the client's situation.

6) Brainstorming and Mapping

"A conversation with a wise person is worth a month's study of books." Remember this proverb. There is truth in what it says. For complex problems, it often helps to talk through the problem with other people. They may see things you don't see. Alternatively, they may have already dealt with the same problem. Who to ask? Law librarians can be a good start. In addition, speak to your fellow students or junior lawyers. And never forget to go back to the assigning lawyer if you are confused, uncertain or just plain stumped. Talking it through can often generate new ideas.

If a problem seems overly complex, break it down into manageable bits. One good suggestion can be to brainstorm on paper by writing down all of the ideas that pop into your mind and then organize those ideas to look for patterns.

If the complexity of your situation relates to complicated relationships (between corporate entities, for example) or important timelines, I sometimes find it helpful to "map out" the problem and visualize the relationships or order important events in chronological or parallel order (and keep these maps or timelines – the can often effectively be included in your memo to visually explain what might take a full page of text to explain).

7) Details Matter

If your research problem involves contracts or other documentation, review those documents for details such as choice of law clauses, attornment clauses, and other boilerplate clauses (such as "no amendments" and "entire agreement" language). If the interpretation of a contract is in issue, I highly recommend Hall's Canadian Contractual Interpretation Law (Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2007).

Likewise, if your problem involves tortious conduct or products liability, see if there are pictures or police reports that might provide relevant information or more detailed information about the product. Alternatively, if there are medical, economic or other aspects to your "legal" problem, Google the relevant keywords to gain a better oversight of these aspects or the client's business and the issues they face and the products they produce.

Although in many situations the struggle can be having too much information and complex details, there can sometimes be a problem of not having all of the correct information. Make sure you get the information that you need from the instructing lawyer.

8) Grappling with the facts

In many situations, the devil is in the details. Grapple with the facts. Often asking yourself the 5 W's (who, what, where, when, and why?) and the 1 H (how?) can be a useful way to better understand the relationship between the parties and help identify what may become legally relevant facts or issues, such as jurisdictional questions (from the "where?" question) or limitation period questions (from the "when?" question).

Fitzgerald's book has some great examples and exercise to work through sample fact analysis (she suggests, for example, to consider identifying the parties, events (what happened?), and what they are seeking (i.e., the claims).

Once you have a better sense of the facts, it is then necessary to consider what the legally relevant facts are. For example, the age of a party is generally not relevant unless they are a minor (and hence under certain legal disabilities) or, for example, an older worker who has been laid off and may find it harder to find new employment.

9) Identifying the issues, determining which legal topics should be explored

To help frame and focus your research, after you have identified and worked with the general and legally relevant facts, it is usually time to identify the issues. Fitzgerald reminds us that there can be both factual and legal issues. If there are factual issues, is more information required? Alternatively, if the outcome depends on certain facts being provable in court, what are the risks of that evidence being rejected by the judge?

After having grappled with the facts and issues, you are usually in a position to start thinking about what legal topics are involved and what resources you should first consult.

Here you should consider the standard approach. First start by checking:

• Books
• Journal articles
• Legal Encyclopedias (CED, Halsbury's Laws of Canada, JurisClasseur)
• Reference tools
• Internet searches
• Firm memos
• Case digests (by topic)

If you are checking these resources on a specific legal topic (e.g., contracts law) but are not finding relevant information, it may be that you have picked the wrong area of law and need to try a different legal subject matter.

Of course, after consulting the secondary resources, you ordinarily must consult the relevant primary resources (legislation and jurisprudence) to verify what the law actual is.

Legal research checklists are a great tool to remind yourself to consult the relevant resources.

10) Be decisive in your conclusions

Law students or young lawyers sometimes struggle with making a conclusion. This can sometimes be due to a lack of self-confidence or experience. Other times, it can sometimes be due to the law being particularly confusing. However, even if the law is uncertain, you can be certain in your conclusion (i.e., you can be certain that the law is uncertain). Our firm has developed sample “conclusory” language, ranging from being highly confident in your opinion at the one extreme to being highly uncertain as to the likely outcome at the other extreme, with varying degrees of language in between. This language can often be useful to a new researcher to provide better ways of explaining your level of confidence in a particular outcome. The “because” if often important here (e..g., I am of the opinion that . . . because . . .”).

They have now added a fourth title, being the Canadian Federal Courts Practice 2012 (Hughes, Renaud and Horne).

The books are published in epub format and can be read in a variety of readers. Purchasers of the print version get the ebook version included as part of their purchase.

Since lawyers seem to increasingly be using the iPad and other larger screen tablet devices, I think it is useful that publishers are experimenting with ebook versions of their print offerings.

On iBooks on the iPad, the normal ebooks functions are all there: search, highlighting, and the ability to add notes, create bookmarks and change font size.

With this new title, there appears to be two fairly significant improvements:

(i) the initial table of contents provides more functionality by providing both a link to the actual court rule or statute in addition to a detailed table of contents for the rule or statute. In most situations, readers would choose the detailed table of contents to make it easier to go directly to a particular rule or section of the statute.

(ii) the index provides clickable (touchable?) references to the particular rule or statute section number.

Although I did not do a detailed comparison with the print version, the ebook version appears to provide the same content as the print for this title, including selected commentary on relevant rules or statutes.

Where cases are cited in the commentary, they are note, however, hyperlinked for the version I used on the iPad, which is something that would be nice (but which I imagine is a lot of work on the publisher's part and may not even be realistic on the epub format).

The site is run by Manitoba lawyer Brad Brooks and offers current awareness newsletters with case law summaries for the following 5 topics of Manitoba law: civil, criminal, family, first nations and municipal. Annual pricing seems extremely reasonable, with a range from $20 per year for the municipal service and $100 per year for the First Nations service, with the other services falling in between those ranges. Sample newsletters are provide (with a sample First Nations newsletter here).

The newsletters provide summaries or digests of recent Manitoba cases for each topic and provide a link to the full-text decision on CanLII.

I don't know Mr. Brooks and would not likely need this service since I don't practice in Manitoba but I thought I would mention the site since it seems like a good initiative on his part, one that is reasonably priced and the kind of legal publishing effort I like to see. When I inquired with a colleague from Manitoba about the service, the response I got was very favourable.

Rather than create Safari browser "Bookmarks" on my iPad, I instead found it more useful to use the option of "Add to Home Page."

What I have therefore done was this: I use a customized HTML "home page" at work and on my home laptop that is organized into 6 "boxes" providing links (and password information) to web resources covering such things as reference tools, books, publishers, journals, research databases, news, case law, precedents and legislation (in some situations, I deep link into commercial databases).

I then uploaded that customized home page to my Dropbox account and opened up that page on my iPad's browser and chose "Add to Home Page" and added it to a "Research" folder on my iPad, as shown with the blue arrow in the following screenshot:

Here is a screenshot showing more detail of the actual page and links (with password information redacted):

When I am "on the road" and need to do legal research on my iPad, I find loading this page makes it very quick and simple to access the research sites I most frequently use.

I have set some of these titles out below in alphabetical order by publisher (note: the dates indicated are from the publisher's website; as you know, these dates are sometimes "approximate" due to the inevitable delays – usually by authors! – in getting books finalized for publication):

Canada Law Book (now part of Thomson Reuters)

• The Law of Employee Use of Technology (Howard Simkevitz and Avner Levin) (June 2011): This is a hot topic so I suspect this will be a useful resource.

• For Better or For Worse: A Practical Guide to Canadian Employment Law, 3d ed (The Honourable Mr. Justice Randall Scott Echlin and Christine Thomlinson) (May 2011): As suggested by its title, I have found this to be a practical resource on Canadian employment law.

• The Law of Subdivision Control in Ontario, 3d ed (Sidney H. Troister) (January 2011): Although this book has been out for a few months, I have not done a "new book" roundup for awhile so thought I would mention it since this is a complicated area of law and I have found the previous editions to be very useful.

• Preparation of Wills and Powers of Attorney: First Interview to Final Report, 4th ed (Mary L. MacGregor) (March 2011): This should be a useful update.

Carswell / Thomson Reuters

• Cause of Action: Occupiers' Liability (Janet E. Smith) (31 May 2011): I am old enough such that Di Castri's 1980 text of the same title was the current title on this topic, so this should be a useful publication.

• Behind and Beyond Boilerplate: Drafting Commercial Agreements, 3d ed (Cynthia L. Elderkin & Julia S. Shin Doi) (August 2011): The foregoing link is to the current second edition from 2005, one of my favourite titles, so I will be looking forward to the release of a new edition, currently listed on Carswell's site as being due for publication later this year.

• The Law of Fraud and the Forensic Investigator, 2d ed (David Debenham) (March 2011): David, a partner in my firm's Ottawa office who is trained as both a lawyer and accountant, has done a new edition of this book on the law of fraud and forensic investigation.

• Executive Liability and the Law, 2d ed (David Debenham) (July 2011): David will also be shortly releasing a new edition of this text, a useful research tool for advising officers and directors.

Irwin Law

• Intellectual Property Law: Copyright, Patents, Trade-Marks, 2d ed (David Vaver) (May 2011): The first edition from 1997 by Professor Vaver was great, so I have high expectations for this new edition, which comes in at a massive 836 pages.

• Law of Torts, 4th ed (Philip Osborne): Although I don't want to be accused of being over-promotional here (since Irwin Law is also one of my publishers), the blurb on the foregoing link is actually a good summary of this work: "a concise and accessible introduction to the principles of tort law in Canada, the social policies underlying the law, and current trends in judicial decision-making." This new edition should be good.

• Canadian Telecommunications Law (Robert Howell) (February 2011): Although this title has been out for awhile, it covers a topic not otherwise well covered in the Canadian legal literature and should be a useful addition for researchers.

LexisNexis Canada

• Drafting Trusts and Will Trusts in Canada, 3d ed (James Kessler, QC, and Fiona Hunter) (August 2011): I like titles that provide both precedents and commentary so am looking forward to this new edition due out later this summer.

• Assessment of Personal Injury Damages, 5th ed (Christopher Bruce, Kelly Rathje, & Laura Weir) (June 2011): An important text for lawyers when trying to assess likely personal injury damages.

• Canadian Tort Law, 9th ed (The Honourable Allen M. Linden & Bruce Feldthusen) (February 2011): Already in a 9th edition, this classic treatise has been out for a few months now but is an essential resource for anyone researching tort law.

• The Law of Civil Procedure in Ontario (The Honourable Mr. Justice Paul M. Perell & The Honourable John W. Morden) (2010): Although this book has been out for awhile now, I don't think I mentioned it in earlier posts. Given the stature of the authors and their experience with civil procedure, this text will be required reading for most litigators researching issues of civil procedure.

Both cases are tragic since they both involved the killing of young children.

In both trials, the accused parents were found not guilty, albeit for different reasons, perhaps surpringsly so based on media accounts (but not apparently too surprising for the respective jurors who sat through weeks of testimony hearing all of the evidence).

The Canadian trial (Guy Trucotte) took place in Quebec. I respect the fact that most Canadian media have reported in a relatively restrained manner on the "not guilty" ruling (due to the accused not being criminally responsible due to a mental illness) (see, for example, a Montreal Gazette report here).

The American trial (Casey Anthony) took place in Florida and I am quite frankly shocked at the media frenzy and the so-called pre-verdict "rush to judgment" by the media pundits.

1) Knowledge Management

I have added on my website a page devoted to Knowledge Management that provides some basic information on knowledge management in the legal profession, along with links to various resources. When I wrote the third edition of my book last year, I added what was a brand-new chapter to the book on knowledge management. It was only during my presentation last week at the New Law Librarians' Institute (see my previous post) did it dawn on me that the accompanying website lacked information or resources specific to legal knowledge management, hence this update to my site on knowledge management.

2) Law-Related Movies

Ken Fox, a librarian at the Law Society of Saskatchewan Library, suggested two law-related movies to add to my list of law-related movies: (i) Secretary (2002, James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal) and (ii) Haiku Tunnel (2001, written, directed by and starring Josh and Jacob Kornbluff).

I was familiar with the first one, which is available on Netflix, but simply forgot to include it – it is perhaps not a movie for uptight, prudish readers that involves, shall we say, an interesting and highly unusual relationship between a lawyer and his secretary; however, I was not familiar with the second one and look forward to checking it out, a story about a different sort of legal secretary. I have added links to both movies on my site, which now contains listings for 120 law-related movies.

Ken also recommended a 1997 remake of 12 Angry Men, directed by William Friedkin and starring Jack Lemmon, so I have added a link to the remake in the entry for the original movie.

It was a 5-day event, with sessions on substantive law led by various University of Western Ontario law professors, combined with sessions by various law librarians, including me.

Sessions included, for example, a Thursday morning session by Professor Sam Trosow on property law for law librarians (including a session on copyright law), followed by a session by UWO Law Librarian John Sadler on researching secondary legal literature. There was then a session in the afternoon on Quebec civil law followed by a computer lab session with hands on practice, with both John and librarian Elizabeth Bruton, also of UWO, leading the various hands on sessions. Others days had other substantive law sessions led by law profs, with other law librarians discussing different aspects of law librarianship.

On the Friday, I presented on the topic of Knowledge Management in the Legal Profession, espousing my views that knowledge management is fully integral to (and ideally fully integrated with) the practice of law librarianship. Aside from discussing the importance of knowledge management within the legal profession, a theme I focused on was the evolving nature of legal knowledge management by updating, in part, the 7 faces of legal knowledge management from my previous paper on that topic.

I was impressed with both the quality of students (around 20 enrollees from as far away as the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Massachusetts) who represented a wide variety of law libraries (private law firm, courthouse and academic) across a fairly wide range of experiences. Although a few of the attendees had specific experience with knowledge management, many had not, and my hope was that I was able to convince them that they all had opportunities to augment their skills by bring knowledge management principles into their daily work as law librarians.

Following my session was a wrap-up panel with John, Elizabeth, me and Gail Brown, a courthouse law librarian from the Middlesex Law Association. Our goal in part in that session was to provide attendees a sense of the working environment in all three types of law libraries. Discussion turned to the job market and advice when interviewing. I am not sure I was entirely happy with my advice, which centered around several things: show confidence, leadership, and an entrepreneurial spirit; and be prepared by anticipating what the employer is looking for – even if you are not asked to prepare a lesson plan or sample research guide, I think it shows initiative to bring examples of what you have done or what you could do for a new employer, depending on the circumstances.

I had to laugh when one of the attendees said that I appeared much less stodgy in person than I did in my SLAW posts!

Although CALL/ACBD will formally evaluate feedback from attendees and make decisions on offering the Institute based in part on those evaluations, my hope is that the program will be offered again, if not annually, at least periodically, and perhaps in rotating locations. One of the attendees, who came to the Institute from the United States, commented during the wrap up session that the Institute was one of the best courses she had attended, compared even to those that are offered in the States.

John Sadler and his team (and CALL/ACBD and its Education Committee) are to be commended for this initiative.

The topic of civility in the legal profession has in fact been raised on SLAW in the past, including a great post by Connie Crosby called Civility in the Law, a post that prompted a lot of Comments.

However, it appears that no mention has been made on SLAW of Eugene's writing on this topic, including an earlier version of his paper "Civility as a Strategy in Litigation: Using It as a Tactical Tool" (and Eugene has promised to update his paper on his site as soon as he is able – as usual, he welcomes comments on the topic).

It is all too common to remember examples from real life (or from Hollywood) of the overly aggressive, nay uncivil, lawyer. What is nice about the points made at the talk and in the paper is that one need not be nice/civil for the sake of being nice (although that is a good thing) – instead, it is usually in your client's interest for you to be civil and the paper discusses a number of tactical tools that can be deployed.

I also liked the point raised at the talk on the difference between being "vigorous" and being" aggressive." You can be vigorous and civil and at the same time and effectively advance your client's cause whereas being aggressive often involves (out-of-control) emotions that can inflame uncivil activity.

And although I was already aware of what Eugene describes as Pig Rule #1 (Never wrestle with a pig – you only get dirty; and the pig likes it), I was not familiar with Pig Rule #2: Never try to teach a pig to dance – it wastes your time; and it only annoys the pig!

Lesson: don't rise to the level of your adversary's incivility and don't let incidents of incivility get under your skin.

“A practical reference guide on legal project management that includes both commentary and useful sample tools and templates."

The second edition of Jim Hassett's Legal Project Management – Quick Reference Guide that my firm purchased arrived last week to compliment our growing collection of materials on this topic.

Hassett's first sentence in the book – "Please do not read this book" – is consistent with his pragmatic approach (he assumes instead that lawyers are busy and should consult only the sections of interest to them). The coiled binding and 11 tabbed sections are also pragmatic, as are the numerous tools and templates, making this a true "Quick Reference Guide" as promised in the subtitle.

The second edition brings substantial new content (186 pages compared to 104 pages in the first edition). As mentioned in Chapter 1, the new and expanded content includes:

• sample checklists

• value questions to ask top clients

• engagement letters

• work breakdown structures

• how to improve the management of legal teams

• personal time management

• process improvement

• knowledge management

• trends in alternative fees

• overcoming resistance to change
   

The names of the 11 tabbed sections provide a sense of the content in the book: Introduction, Define Scope, Activities, Team, Budget, Risks, Quality, Communication, Change Scope, Action Items, and Appendices.

Chapter 4, for example, is entitled "Identify and Schedule Activities" (represented by the "Activities" tab) and includes a wide variety of tools and templates, including a checklist of best practices, matter planning templates and sample examples, sample work breakdown structures and a good discussion on the differences between project management, process improvement, Six Sigma, and Lean Six Sigma.

Likewise, Chapter 9, for example, is entitled "Manage Client Communication and Expectations" (represented by the "Communication" tab) and covers the following important aspects of client communication, including sample checklists, the RACI matrix, a sample communication plan and value questions to ask top clients (including such questions as "How could we increase the value of services we provide?" or "How satisfied are you with our services, on a scale from 1 to 10?)." Also included in this chapter is a discussion of the ACC Value Index and the importance of "after action" reviews.

The Appendices tab in fact covers close to 95 pages of content and includes:

• Appendix A: Sample checklists, such as an "Asset Aquisition Task Checklist" (I found these less useful since most large firms will already have such checklists)

• Appendix B: Legal Project Management Trends (an excellent discussion)

• Appendix C: Alternative fees (which includes a summary of the publisher's survey of in-depth interviews with chairmen, senior partners and C-level executives at 37 of the largest law firms in the US)

• Appendix D: Overcoming Lawyer's Resistance to Change (useful for those firms whose lawyers are still "not getting it")

• Appendix E: Sample blank templates (this is largely repetitive of the templates introduced earlier in the Guide)

It is actually hard to be too critical of this new publication (such as noting that the tabs don't match the Chapters perfectly). There is also a slight aspect to the book of it indirectly marketing the author's consulting services (and in fact it appears the Guide is available at a discounted price for attendees of his seminars); however, the Guide still provides value and is useful to anyone who has not attended the seminars (I have not).

There are relatively few substantive books on project management geared specifically to lawyers, with Steven Levy's Legal Project Management – Control Costs, Meet Schedules, Manage Risks and Maintain Sanity being an early contribution to the literature (Levy's book was positively reviewed here on SLAW). Although Levy's book and Hassett's guide cover a lot of the same material, they are different, with Levy's book perhaps being more comprehensive or providing a more "cohesive" treatment (and I like that Levy in fact includes a Chapter aimed specifically at in-house counsel and what they should be doing about legal project management). Hassett's book, on the other hand, as suggested above, is more of a "reference tool" containing a lot more sample tools and templates.

For lawyers wanting to learn more about project management, it is a "no brainer" to likely acquire both books and I would be hard-pressed to recommend one over the other. Regardless, I think the new edition of Hassett's book represents a useful addition to the literature and I highly recommend it.

Next up: I am awaiting arrival of my firm's purchase of Barbara J Boake and Rick A Kathuria, Project Management for Lawyers (London: Ark Group, 2011). If appropriate, I will do a brief review of this publication as well.

· Buy Recommendation:
· Who should buy? Lawyers in private practice and in-house, CLE Directors, KM Directors
· Better Buys: None
· Websites: Publisher's book page
· New Media Rating: (see author's blog here)

Example in point: Bills C-1 and S-1 have been published. Despite respectively being – in name – "An Act respecting the administration of oaths of office" and an "Act relating railways" – of course neither bill has anything to do with either topic and neither bill will pass first reading.

Apparently, it all has to do with a "custom" dating back over 400 years ago for "pro forma" bills. I didn't find the explanation on LegisINFO or Wikipedia to be entirely satisfactory. Wouldn't it be simpler to amend the Rules of the House to make these pro forma bills unnecessary?

Time for Parliament to enter the 21st century. While they are at it, let's abolish the Monarchy in Canada and take "God" out of proclamations and other Parliamentary procedures (as in the proclamation summoning Parliament to meet).

Or perhaps I'll leave those last two items to another day . . . .

Regardless of how you voted in the last election, are you cynical or hopeful that our elected politicians will earn their keep and have a productive Parliamentary session? (Alas, I remain cynical).

Early activity this week should see the election of a new Speaker of the House and perhaps some indication of the direction the new majority Conservative government will take in Friday's Speech from the Throne.

A good Canadian Press article provides a great overview of what to expect with this new Parliament, suggesting in fact we will see only a brief "Spring Sitting" over the next 2 or 3 weeks with a summer break and a more detailed legislative agenda in the Fall, giving some of the rookie MPs more time to learn their new roles.

A number of topics of interest to legal researchers have made the news in the last short while on this topic:

• the impact of a majority government on copyright reform

• the need for increased transparency by our politicians, especially given the retirement of Auditor General Sheila Fraser

• the suggestion that Jack Layton was in fact the least civil MP in the last session of Parliament and how effective the NDP will be as the Opposition Party

• the likelihood of the Conservative party imposing their "tough on crime" legislative proposals

• increasing calls for abolishing the Senate

These may be interesting times, legislatively speaking.

I think that the improved Parliamentary and LEGISinfo websites should make federal legislative research easier to do. I also see that Eugene Forsey's How Canadians Govern Themselves is now in a 2010, 7th edition.

My co-speaker was Andrew Terrett, the National Director of Knowledge Management at BLG who provided a great, pragmatic overview of project management in law firms.

Although in my paper I also provided a brief overview of legal project management and what various law firms were doing about it, the focus of my talk was instead on the third part of my paper on whether there was a role for law librarians in project management (this being a conference whose attendees were largely law librarians).

A copy of my paper, entitled "Project Management in Law Firms: A New Role for Librarians?" is available here, and includes a bibliography on legal project management resources (20 pages, PDF).

The first theme of my talk was that legal project management is definitely here to stay so we should all be embracing it as a new way of practicing law.

The second theme was that legal project management presents great opportunities to law librarians to leverage their expertise and expand their services.

Those people who know me well will know that I strongly believe in the connection between law librarianship and legal knowledge management (and I in fact don't distinguish between the two activities since I think they are so closely entwined). Therefore, to the extent that there are overlaps between legal knowledge management and legal project management, there are, I think, a number of roles for law librarians to play.

I identified 8 roles for law librarians:

#1: Education and current awareness: To the extent that legal project management may still be quite new to some firms, there is an opportunity for law librarians to acquire materials on the topic and educate those within the firm through current awareness and monitoring what others in the industry are doing.

#2: RFPs / bidding process: An important element in legal project management for law firms is bidding on work through the RFP process. In many firms, there are opportunities for the RFP process to be improved and there are opportunities here for law librarians to work with their Marketing Department counterparts and firm management on organizing and standardizing their RFP documentation.

#3: Checklists: Law librarians are natural keepers and organizers of checklists, an important tool in large deals or lawsuits to tracking the steps that need to be taken (when discussing checklists, I like to mention the great work done by the Law Society of British Columbia in making a number of practice checklists available online). When combined with Role # 4 below, librarians can augment checklists by providing easy access to documents required at each step of the matter.

#4: Research / Precedents: To be more efficient and effective on large deals or lawsuits, law librarians are well poised to "imbed" research and precedents within the various resources needed on a particular deal or lawsuit. Of the 8 roles identified, this is perhaps the most obvious role (or at least the one most closely associated with what law librarians do).

#5: Evaluating and using Project Management Software: Many law librarians are likely the most experienced "searchers" within their firms and often have good expertise in evaluating software, including project management software. And although project management isn't only about technology, software tools can play an important role (if you have not yet had your daily dose of being overwhelmed with too much information, check out the over 120 titles listed in the Wikipedia entry for project management software titles).

#6: e-Discovery Support: Canadian law firms are starting to get more experience with e-discovery with the increased adoption of new rules of civil procedure on handling large volumes of electronic discovery. Due to the large volume of materials, e-discovery is ripe to being project-managed. While in many situations it may be litigation law clerks or paralegals who will involved in the day-to-day "hands on" of e-discovery under the supervision of the resonsible litigation lawyer, many Knowledge Management departments in law firms help support e-discovery, whether it be evaluating e-discovery software, developing and organizing e-discovery precedents or simply monitoring e-discovery developments and best practices.

#7: Post-deal Reviews: An important element of project management is following up after the project is completed to see how the team did and how things can be improved next time. In many situations, both the lawyers and the client are too busy to deal with this or are otherwise already moving on to the next project. Depending on how your firm is structured, I think there is a role here for the Knowledge Management department to help with the post-deal review process.

#8: Internal Administrative Projects: Although much of legal project management correctly focuses on meeting client needs, realize that firms will also benefit from applying project management to their own internal projects and processes. In many situations, law librarians are well-suited to be involved on these internal projects, which could include such things as evaluating and implementing a new document management system or integrating library catalogues in a merged firm.
______________

I welcome comments.

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Note 1: When I prepared my paper (available at the link above), the following book published by the Ark Group had not yet been announced. I told attendees I would provide a link to that paper in this post, so here is the link:

– Barbara J Boake and Rick A Kathuria, Project Management for Lawyers (London: Ark Group, 2011)

Note 2: I also saw this morning that Jim Hassett has announced the launch of his new Legal Project Management Quick Reference Guide.

Handing an associate a Lexis or Westlaw password and asking them to be “cost effective,” is like handing someone a credit card and sending them into a store in which none of the merchandise is priced and then berating them when the bill comes in exceeding your budget. No consumer affairs department would allow a retailer to perpetrate this kind of thing on the public. How is it that almost every law firm in the US has put up with this for the past 3 decades?

_________________

The obsession with being “cost effective” distracts the associate from focusing on the real goal — finding the right answer. Here comes the brain theory. Effective legal research requires deep focus and concentration yet… “the myth of cost effective research” requires an associate to engage half of their attention on a collateral and competing analysis of factors which have nothing to do with the substance of the law. (Am I in hourly or transactional mode? Is this content included or excluded? Should I print or read online? Should I execute a new search or will that cost too much? Have I selected the cheapest file? Is it cheaper to print by the line or print a page or print a document or should I email the results to myself?)

Consistent with my views, the author advocates the use of law-related movies in teaching the law to students. She draws on several movies for specific purposes (e.g., Adam's Rib and Suspect for ethics, evidence and criminal law), North Country for employment law, and Flash of Genius for IP Law).

In hindsight, I was embarrassed to not have included the obvious choice of Flash of Genius for my law-related movies website, so I have updated my site to include that movie (along with Hart's War, a military court martial movie), bringing the total number of law-related movies on my site to 118 movies.

I have also added reference to her book Movie Therapy for Law Students (and Pre-Law, Paralegal, and Related Majors) (Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2009), along with some other books about law-related movies she cites in the article.

I have now tested those e-books on my iPad and thought I would pass on my comments.

The three titles are:

– The Practitioner's Criminal Code, 2011 Edition
– Ontario Superior Court Practice, 2011 Edition
– LegisPratique – Code de procédure civile annoté, édition 2010

The books are in EPUB format and were easy to download and transfer on to my PDA by adding them to the Book portion of iTunes and synching my iPad, where they show up on my iBook bookshelf, as per the following screenshot (realize I purchase most of my books using Amazon Kindle so my iBook bookshelf is otherwise quite sparse):

LexisNexis provides a detailed FAQ on their website that explains about how to load and use the e-books and confirms that the e-book version does not "time bomb" or expire, which is a nice feature for those people wanting to maintain an archival copy. Of course, e-book reader software is usually freely available for a wide variety of devices, including desktop and laptop computers in addition to most PDAs.

Although I did most of my testing using the Ontario Superior Court Practice, since that title was most closely related to my practice, it appears that all three books work in a similar fashion.

There is a scrollable table of contents that is hyperlinked to take you deeper into the book. Depending on what section of the book you click on, there may be further hyperlinks within in the deeper content. For example, in the main table of contents there was a link to the Class Proceedings Act, 2002. When you click on that link, you are taken to the section of the book containing that Act where there is then a table of contents to the Act that is clickable by section, as shown by the "blue" links in the following screenshot:

Depending on the content in the print version, there is often commentary or case annotations provided. In the e-book version, footnotes in the text are hyperlinked but references to cases generally are not hyperlinked (although I noticed where there was mention of the Ontario Court Forms website in the text, a URL to the public site was provided).

The ability to change font size was useful since I found a smaller font size necessary to get more text on a single screen.

Navigating was fairly easy but for some sections of the text where there are not hyperlinked sections there would be a lot of "flipping" of pages to find the passage of interest. Copying and highlighting of text comes standard, as does the ability to choose from several fonts, font size, and screen brightness.

Also, search seemed extremely slow, although I assume that has nothing to do with LexisNexis and perhaps more with the format or other technological reasons. Searching on the word Internet took the unit close to 80 seconds to start showing results (as seen in the screenshot below), and repeating this exercise several times after opening and closing the book did not improve performance (i.e., it did not necessarily seem to be a search-indexing issue):

The index that is in the hard copy is in the e-book version, although the page numbers in the e-book version are not hyperlinked.

All in all, the experience was better than I anticipated and to the extent that the e-book versions were free (with purchase of the hard copy), I guess one can't complain. I imagine the market for print copies of these titles and other "desk copy" titles will remain strong in the short term. As such, I wonder to what extent publishers will continue to invest on improvements to the e-book versions. LexisNexis Canada is to be applauded for the effort. Enahncements for future e-book versions would include more extensive or robust internal navigations, hyperlinking of cases (presumably to the publisher's proprietary databases, one would think), and improved search functions.

To the extent I am otherwise usually carrying my iPad with me most times, having these e-books available to provide easy access to the applicable court rules or legislation (along with some commentary) is useful and would be useful for lawyers in court or otherwise on the go.

It has been close to 6 years since the previous editon was issued. In that time, Dukelow notes in her preface that one "sea change" in legal language has been a movement to plainer English in legislation and judicial reasons. According to her, the new edition focuses more on pure legal terminology and less on industries and activities regulated by law. Dukelow also notes that Betsy Nuse helped with this new edition (and on a historical note: in the Preface to the First Edition, found in the current edition, I was reminded of the role played by Gary Rodrigues – a current SLAW contributor – in overseeing the publication of the first edition).

By way of contrast in terms of length, I note that the last entry in the 3rd edition for "Zoning Bylaw" was on page 1429, whereas that same last definition in the new edition is on page 1411, meaning that there has been a slight reduction in the total number of pages.

Although it is impossible to spot all of the differences, Dukelow has clearly removed older, less useful content to allow for some new content, such as a new entries for "Cyber-bullying" and "Forward-looking information."

As with past editions, the dictionary contains ample entries for common Latin legal phrases and would, I guess, have citations to case law or legislation for likely around 60% of the definitions.

I like that the new edition has "thumbnail indents" for each letter of the alphabet, making it easier to open up the page to the relevant section of the dictionary.

However, I did notice a few peculiarities where one wonders whether there was a need to define a particular term. For example, there is an entry for "Dead body" with the definition simply being "A corpse," with the corresponding reverse definition not being entirely parallel (i.e., "Corpse" is defined as "The dead body of a person.").

Out of curiousity, I ran an unscientific search on Westlaw Canadian cases on the phrase "dictionary of canadian law" compared to "black's law dictionary" over the last 1, 3 and 10 years to compare citation practice. As I had (loosely) predicted, with the passage of time, there appears to be a small but growing trend in the increase of citations by Canadian jurists to our Canadian dictionary instead of to the American classic, proportionately, with the passage of time:

– past year: Canadian – cited 35 times, American – cited 192 times

– past 3 years: Canadian – cited 109 times, American – cited 678 times

– past year: Canadian – cited 343 times, American – cited 2388 times

Although there is a Canadian electronic close equivalent from the same publisher (Sanagan’s Encyclopedia of Words and Phrases on Carswell's eReference Library), and although there is an e-version of Black's Law Dictionary (from the same publisher in the States), I am not aware of any plans to make the The Dictionary of Canadian Law available online. However, I suspect there may be a market for larger firms for a licensed online version. If they are otherwise paying several hundred dollars for multiple print copies, a large firm might be willing to pay a little bit more to license an online version to the entire firm.

All in all, an (obviously) welcome additon to any law library and the author/publisher are to be commended.

I did learn a new word: Gynarcy (Government by women) (although there was no mention of the alternative spelling of "Gynarchy" which seems to be the preferred spelling from Google and the OED).

Unfortunately, in the Canadian legal publishing market – which is relatively small – the quality of indexes in print law-related books is variable since most publishers put the onus on the author to create their own index (which makes sense, since the author is the subject expert and knows his or her text quite well). However, indexes are often only created after the author has completed the manuscript and there may be less incentive for some authors to devote a lot of time to developing a high-quality index. In addition, indexing a book is not easy and there is yet to be a fool-proof software to create the perfect index.

All of this to say: indexes are an invaluable finding tool when using law-related books to research a topic.

Given the trend for legal publishers to create e-book versions of their print treatises (a topic I have blogged on several times here on SLAW – see the links at the end of this post for those past blogs), this post is a call to publishers to ensure they include indexes in the e-book versions of their books.

Below is a brief survey of some of the e-book offerings from the major Canadian legal publishers I regularly use (apologies if I have not included examples from every publisher; feel free to add comments if I have made any significant omissions).

1) Carswell / Thomson Reuters: For some time now, Carswell has had selected e-books on Westlaw Canada as part of their various "Source" products (including, for example, Professor McLaren's Secured Transactions In Personal Property In Canada, to name but one of many). However, although the e-book version on Westlaw Canada is easy to search and browse via a Table of Contents, the Westlaw Canada version does not contain an Index, whereas the version on Carswell's eReference Library does contain an Index, as seen in the following screenshot:

Screenshot of the online Index from Carswell's eReference Library for Secured Transactions In Personal Property In Canada

I appreciate that Carswell is offering their books on two different platforms and it may not be easy to provide an index on the Westlaw Canada version, but I really like having the Index on the other version (and most of their other books on the eReference platform appear to provide Indexes as well).

2) LexisNexis Quicklaw: I regularly use the e-book version of Angela Swan's Canadian Contract Law, 2d ed (2009) because the print copies we have are often signed out. However, the e-book version – like most if not all other e-books on LexisNexis Quicklaw – does not have an online Index, whereas I suspect Angela and Jakub Adamski spent some time developing a high quality index for the print version. However, I see in an advertisement in this week's Ontario Reports that 3 new e-book offerings from LexisNexis (including, for example, The Practitioner's Criminal Code, 2011 Edition, will feature indexes in the e-book version. Similar to what Carswell is doing with its eReference library, it appears that LexisNexis is making these e-books available for free for download for customers who have purchased the print version.

3) Irwin Law e-Book Library: Irwin Law offers an e-Library of its print books. Their eLibrary collection are basically graphic facsimiles of the print version (searchable and browsable) that include the Index (and other finding tools). In the "web" version of their eLibrary, the Index pages are not clickable; however, by launching the "ebrary" version of the book (which I recommend doing for a variety of reasons), the pages in the Index are clickable, taking the reader directly to the relevant page or page range indicated, as seen in the following screenshot:

Screenshot of Irwin Law's ebrary version of a clickable Index for The Law of Evidence

4) CCH Online: CCH has offered online versions of its large, black loose-leaf binders for some time now on CCH Online. There are a number of useful finding and other reference tools with their products, including, for example, concordance tables of legislation (their Rapid Finder Index, available here online, is particularly useful for finding which of their titles provides information on a particular topic). Shown below is a screenshot from their Canadian Estate Administration Guide showing a clickable index:

Screenshot of the online Index from CCH Online's Canadian Estate Administration Guide

5) Canada Law Book e-books: Canada Law Book (now part of the Thomson Reuters Group) has had its e-book offerings contain Indexes for some time, including O'Brien's Encyclopedia of Forms and Precedents and the various treatises in their Spectrum products. In fact, I suspect they may have been one of the first publishers to include Indexes in their online book equivalents. Below is a screenshot showing the online index from Stacey Ball's Canadian Employment Law, an index I use a fair bit:

Screenshot of the online Index from Canada Law Book's Canadian Employment Law

All in all, there appears to be some good examples of online indexes. My hope is that for any new versions of e-books where there was an index in the print equivalent, the publishers will include a clickable version of the index in the online version.

Additional resources – past blog posts by me on e-books in the Canadian legal publishing industry:

– Irwin Law’s New E-Book Platform (24 February 2010)

– Update re Law-Related e-Books (7 January 2009)

– Digital Law Books, Redux (21 April 2008)

– Digital Law Books in Canada (19 September 2007)

LexisNexis should be applauded for being first to the market in Canada with a case law database app.

However, in testing it just now on my iPad I think in most cases I would simply launch a Quicklaw session on my iPad's web browser.

The app is fairly simple. I find the iPhone "size" too small but there was a feature, as is common for iPhone apps that work on the iPad, to double the size, which made typing on the app's inbuilt keyboard easier.

There is an option to search by case name or by citation. When I searched on << lac minerals >> in case name, I got 65 hits. It was easy enough to scroll through the results to find the SCC decision I was looking for. However, in clicking on the link to the SCC decision there was an "error" message saying the download was too large and that I should consider viewing the case in a normal web session.

Searching by citation worked as well. In that situation, I typed in (at random) << [2008] scj 14 >> and was able to load the full-text of the decision after choosing the EN or FR version. However, I got an error message when trying to use the QuickCite button to note-up the case. On a second effort, I did get the QuickCite result but for some reason it changed the orientation on my iPad on its own while in a "portrait" position in my iPad stand.

There was a feature to reduce or enlarge the size of the text, which was useful (I found shrinking the text was a good thing to do since it let you get more text on the screen and resulted in less scrolling).

To be fair, those were only 2 quick examples, but as mentioned above, I would likely go straight to launching a pure "web" session on my iPad. As most iPad and iPhone users know, you can make any website an "icon" on your device, making it simple to launch a session.

I had earlier downloaded the free WestlawNext app for my iPad but that service does not yet work in Canada. As such, I also run my Westlaw Canada searches on my iPad in a web browser session, which seems to be fine for the most part.

I encourage the vendors to continue development on such apps since tablet use is the trend (and they should focus specifically on the larger sized tablets where more screen space makes the experience more practical – I realize this new free iPhone app is likely aimed at the lawyer in court with only an iPhone to provide basic access to cases).

I hope to develop my own free iPad app for conducting legal research on the Internet, focusing on freely available sources of law.

Although the CALL-L Archives contains some of the information that follows, it does not contain all of this information. In addition, responses in the Archives are not accessible by non-subscribers and hence are not indexed by Internet search engines. As such, my goal with this post — with the help of any SLAW readers adding additional information or clarifications in the Comments section below — is to update and consolidate postings from the CALL-L Archives and past SLAW posts to create a fairly definitive answer to the following question: Where can I find English translations of Canadian court decisions written in French?

The reality is that unless the decision is published in an official court reporter or a bilingual jurisdiction (see below), most court decisions in Canada will be published only in a single language, typically the language in which the cases is argued. For most decisions in Canada, this means that the decision will be in English only and there will not automatically be English translations of most French-language decisions.

The short answer? To check to see if there is an English translation of a French-language court decision in Canada:

• search by case name on LexisNexis Quicklaw, Westlaw Canada, BestCase, SOQUIJ/AZIMUT, REJB and CanLII and check for bilingual versions by looking for two decisions under the same name on the same date or click on a "English" link, where available, to see if there is an English version available (of these services, if your case is a recent one, searching only on CanLII is likely sufficient in most situations).

and

• check the free database on SOQUIJ of unofficial translations into English of French decisions

However, despite the usefulness of this free database from SOQUIJ, realize that it is quite limited in scope, providing by my count translations of only 395 decisions broken down by the following courts/tribunals (with the number indicating the total number of translations as of today's date):

– Quebec Court of Appeal (167)
– Quebec Superior Court (95)
– Court of Quebec (118)
– Quebec Human Rights Tribunal (10)
– Quebec Professions Tribunal (5)

In addition to the foregoing, consider the following information:

Supreme Court of Canada

As explained on the Lexum/SCC website, decisions published in the Supreme Court Reports from 1970 to date are available in both English and French, with older decisions being available in the language of publication only.

Federal Court of Canada

Section 58 of the Federal Courts Act, RSC 1985, c F-7, discusses the law reports for the Federal Court and Federal Court of appeal, with s 58(4) mandating that each decision published in the official reports be published in both official languages.

Quebec Courts

My understanding from colleagues in Quebec is that Quebec judges are generally very flexible and will accommodate litigants and their counsel by hearing arguments and rendering a judgment in the language of preference to the parties. As mentioned above, however, this most often means that the judgment will only be in a single language without there being an official translation provided by the court or an unofficial judgment otherwise being available.

However, in some situations, Quebec courts do provide translations, such as with the following criminal decision where there is both a French and English version:

– FR: Morin c R, 2009 QCCA 187

– EN: Morin v R, 2009 QCCA 187

[I welcome comments from anyone in Quebec if there are other things we anglophones should know about French-language decisions from La belle province]

New Brunswick Courts

The official languages page from the New Brunswick Courts website explains that s 24 of the Official Languages Act, SNB 2002, c O-0.5, requires that "[a]ny final decision, order or judgment of any court, including any reasons given therefore and summaries, shall be published in both official languages where (a) it determines a question of law of interest or importance to the general public, or (b) the proceedings leading to its issuance were conducted in whole or in part in both official languages."

Of course, reference should be made to Eric Appleby's SLAW post of 23 June 2010 entitled Evolution of Bilingual Judgments in New Brunswick for an excellent overview of bilingual judgments in that province and the role that Maritime Law Book played in that development.

_____________________________________

I welcome any additional comments or clarifications.

Based on recent discussions with colleagues on the role of legal research lawyers, I thought I would re-visit the topic and update my thinking in light of the changes in the economy and technological developments.

Just over 5 years ago here on SLAW, I posted Legal Researchers in the Year 2020 (30 November 2005). In that post, I discussed the likelihood that technology in the year 2020 will have changed sufficiently to make the finding of law-related information easier. I also discussed the challenges that research lawyers face in law firms (such as whether they can rise to equity partners), the impact of contracting out of legal research and the relationship between knowledge management and legal research in law firms.

Two years after that, I posted an update in The Role of Legal Research Lawyers in Law Firms (28 November 2007). In that post, I discussed some of the perception challenges that research lawyers face, including the perception that research is somehow "easy" and anyone can do it and that it is not on the same par as substantive law areas of practice (such as tax). There are also the challenges of determining what lawyers should know (and be included in their hourly rate) versus what can be billed to clients for new and required areas of research (i.e., the challenge of "the client doesn't want to pay for research"). In that post was a good comment on the fact that teaching legal research and writing in Canadian law schools remains a challenge and the lack of proper training in law school may be impacting some of the issues described above being felt within the profession.

Well, where do we stand now?

There is, of course, a bit of plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose: not much has changed.

However, I think there are several developments and I thought I would re-articulate my views on the role of research lawyers.

• A large firm phenomenon: Although there will likely always be a good market for individual solo-practitioners to market their services as research lawyers to lawyers and in-house legal corporations, the "luxury" of having a research lawyer within your own law firm assumes a larger firm since most law firm research lawyers act for other lawyers at the firm and not necessarily directly with clients. As a result, law firm research lawyers generally need a large body of lawyers within the firm who need research done. This of course raises its own challenges about how to build a research department within a large firm and the challenges of making the business case for such a department, the need to market one's services, and so on.

• Students versus lawyers: To the extent that Canadian law firms will continue to hire articling students as apprentices, the reality is that such students play an important role in conducting legal research in law firms. In theory, the students – fresh from law school – are good at research and have lower billable rates that make them effective. However, the reality is that research lawyers with more experience will often be able to render an opinion more cost-effectively due to their experience. As such, in many situations, the model will be a combination of student-generated researched augmented by one or more research lawyers providing opinions on more complex nsactions or otherwise playing a supervisory role over the research being done by students.

• Demand for research continues: Although technology improves, it will unlikely improve to the point to eliminate the need for the skills that research lawyers bring to their task. These skills include knowledge of sources, technical/computer search skills, analytical reasoning, and the ability to render opinions in difficult circumstances. And since "the Law" will remain complex, ever-changing and often contradictory, and since no single lawyer can know "the Law", there will always be issues that need to be researched. I therefore remain optimistic that there will continue to be a need for good legal research lawyers.

• Research as a career? Despite the optimism in the preceding paragraph (that there will always be a need for research lawyers), there is some uncertainty in the Canadian legal research lawyer market whether the existing senior research lawyers at large firms who are partners will be replaced by more junior research lawyers who will in turn rise through the ranks to partnership. The reality instead appears to be that senior research lawyers tend to evolve into "opinions" lawyers or "trusted advisors" within their firms since the hands-on legal research can be done more cost-effectively by junior lawyers or students. A more realistic view may be to perceive research lawyers in important but albeit non-partnership-track positions. For most Canadian colleagues working as research lawyers, the trend appears to be that they evolved into such positions after having practiced in other areas or done other things. This has the advantage of bringing some experience (and judgment, or so one hopes) to the task of being a research lawyer. This is not to say, however, that a young lawyer could start his or her career as a research lawyer and there are numerous examples of where this has been successful.

• Outsourcing: Although the outsourcing of Canadian legal research to off-shore firms or to cheaper "in country" temp agencies seems like a logical solution, my sense is that many large firms will continue to invest in retaining their own legal research lawyers to help ensure and maintain internal capacity. In addition to the actual research being done, research lawyers play valuable roles in other ways such as training/mentoring students and other lawyers, developing in-house standards and precedents, working on opinions, advising the firm on risk management or conflict of interest issues, and the like (consistent with my view that research and knowledge management should be truly integrated activities). These ancillary functions would often be lost in the absence of there being an internal research lawyer. I also continue to myopically think that there are "local" advantages to be found that "off-shore" or remote researchers would be unable to leverage. These local advantages could be as simple as knowing the reputation of a local judge versus having access to print resources that are unlikely to be easily found or accessed by off-shore or remote researchers.
   

Those are my thoughts for now. Ten years from now? Who knows? One consistent thing I have noticed among research lawyers is that they/we share the common characteristic of the love/need to solve problems (and the need to simplify complex problems). The challenge of starting with an issue or problem that seems insolvable and then applying one's skills to uncover a likely (or "the" likely) answer is extremely satisfying on an intellectual level. This is not to say that only research lawyers have this trait compared to other lawyers; however, with research lawyers this characteristic tends to dominate.

Word comes today that lawyer/journalist/blogger Jim Middlemiss will retire from his blog posts at Legal Post and his Behind the Bar Columns but will instead continue to write a column for Canadian Lawyer magazine, "stick his toes in the corporate waters" and "maybe one day get that Twitter account figured out, assuming I have something relevant to say in 140 characters" (his words).

Drew Hasselback will continue as Legal Post editor.

Congratulations to both Jim and Drew. I find the Legal Post an excellent source for Canadian law-related news.

In addition, where available, I have added a link to the Netflix listing for 21 of the 114 titles that are available on Netflix for ease of viewing for those readers with Netflix subscriptions (note: I have no connection to Netflix other than being a subscriber).

Although I was aware of all of but one of the newly added 16 movies (and have seen most of them), I am embarrassed to have previously over-looked them. In addition, realize that I have tried to keep my list of law-related movies fairly conservative, excluding most purely political or crime dramas and some of these recent additions may be on the periphery of being law-related.

In updating my site, I came across the Fordham Law School Forum on Law, Culture & Society and see that they have an annual film festival that includes viewings and discussions on movies with law-related themes.

Of help in expanding my list was the ABA's 25 Greatest Legal Movies (1 August 2008) article that I recently stumbled across. The only movies I was missing from their list were the following 6 of 16 titles I added to my site this past weekend, some of which seem obvious in hindsight:

• Amistad (1997): A historical drama, directed by Stephen Spielberg, that tells the true story of African slaves who mutiny against their capture and transport aboard La Amistad, a slave ship. Focusing largely on the courtroom scenes in which the slaves are charged with mutiny, the story ends in a decision from the US Supreme Court ruling that the slaves were wrongfully kidnapped and in their rights to mutiny and ordered them freed (realize this summary does not do justice to the movie or the story).

• Chicago (2002): This Rob Marshall-directed musical is on the periphery of being considered a law-related movie, but the character of Billy Flynn as a sleazy lawyer, played admirably by Richard Gere, puts it on the edge of falling within my definition (plus I liked it – not too many law-related movies can claim good dancing and music).

• Compulsion (1959): This is one I was surprised I had never seen. Orson Welles stars as a defence lawyer in what IMDB describes as: "Two wealthy law-school students go on trial for murder in this version of the Leopold-Loeb case."

• In the Name of the Father (1993): Based (loosely, according to Roger Ebert) on the true story of the Guildford Four wrongfully accused of an IRA bombing of a British pub in 1974, this drama has Emma Thompson playing the hard-working defence lawyer and focuses on the trials and tribulations of Gerry Conlon (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his father (Pete Postlethwaite) wrongfully convicted for the crimes.

• A Man for All Seasons (1966): Based on the play by Robert Bolt, this classic movie stars Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More, and tells the story of the Chancellor of England's opposition to King Henry VIII's attempts to divorce Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn.

• Young Mr. Lincoln (1939): John Ford directs Henry Fonda as the young Abraham Lincoln in his early career as a lawyer, telling the tale of his defence of two men charged with murder.

In addition, the ABA also had a list of 25 Honorable Mentions, most of which I already had included in my list, except for the following 5 of 16 titles that I have since added:

• Counsellor at Law (1933): Since I have not seen this movie, starring John Barrymore as the lawyer, I rely on the IMDB summary, in these terms, to describe the movie: "Successful attorney has his Jewish heritage and poverty-stricken background brought home to him when he learns his wife has been unfaithful."

• The Fortune Cookie (1966): It has been years since I saw this movie, directed by Billy Wilder and starring Walter Matthau as an ambulance-chasing lawyer who convinces his brother-in-law, played by Jack Lemmon, a cameraman injured by a football player during a game, to pretend to be injured.

• Ghosts of Mississippi (1996): Rob Reiner directed this courtroom drama, based on a true story of the trial of a white supremacist (played by James Wood) accused of murdering civil rights activist Medgar Evers in 1963. Alec Baldwin plays the prosecutor who brings charges years after the murder with the support of Evers's spouse, played by Whoopi Goldberg.

• Music Box (1989): I remember seeing this movie as a young lawyer being bothered by the improbability or inappropriateness of a daughter representing her father against charges of war crimes. That said, Jessica Lange plays the daughter/lawyer, with Armin Mueller-Stahl playing her father, a Hungarian immigrant, accused with war crimes based on recently released documents.

• North Country (2005): For some reason, I was never a huge fan of Charlize Theron, but she does a good job in this story as a mistreated female employee in a male-dominated workforce in a mine in Minnesota, based on a true story, that resulted in the first class action sexual harassment lawsuit in the United States (the Wikipedia entry here has a nice overview of the real-life lawsuit).

In addition to the foregoing titles, additional law-related movies were mentioned in the "Comments" fields on the posts above. From those comments, I have also added the remaining 5 of 16 movies to my site this past weekend:

• Body Heat (1981): Although not really law-related per se, this drama, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, tells the story of a not very reputable small town lawyer, played by William Hurt, and his affair with a married woman, played by Kathleen Turner, and their plot to murder her husband.

• Fracture (2007): I saw this movie when it came out and thought it was a bit silly. It is a courtroom drama of a young prosecutor, played by Ryan Gosling, prosecuting his last murder case before jumping ship to become a plaintiff's lawyer. The prosecution is of a wealthy businessman, played by Anthony Hopkins. It seems like an open-and-shut case, but is not. To avoid any spoiler alerts, I won't say anything more.

• Gideon's Trumpet (1980): This is one I don't recall seeing. It appears to have been a TV movie starring Henry Fonda playing Clarence Gideon based on the true story of a Florida convict who seeks the right to have counsel appointed. His claim for such a right ended up in a Supreme Court ruling in his favour in Gideon v Wainwright, 372 US 335 (1963).

• The Winslow Boy (1999): For some reason, I never saw this David Mamet-directed movie, based on the play by Terence Rattigan that loosely tells the story of George Archer-Shee, a British naval cadet accused of stealing a postal order in 1910. In the movie – as in real life – the family defends the honour of the young lad who is eventually exonerated. However, in what was a first of its kind, the family then goes on to petition the U.K. Parliament for compensation for the wrongful prosecution.

• The Young Philadelphians (1959): We of course have seen Paul Newman as a "veteran" lawyer in The Verdict. Here we see him some 20 years younger in a different role as he plays a young, rising lawyer in Philadelphia. This is another "older" movie I have not seen. From the plot summary from the Wikipedia entry, it seems like quite a soap opera, with lots of marital infidelities and social/class status issues, with Newman rising through the ranks in his law firm, ultimately defending a friend on a murder charge.

With these latest additions, I hope to have now included most existing "law-related movies" (narrowly defined), but I welcome suggestions for any more additions. I will also watch for newly released movies that fit the criteria for my site.

I have always liked this book and use it in training, particularly for the sections on learning how to analyze facts in legal problem solving and then applying the law to the facts, often a challenge for rookie legal researchers. I will look forward to using the new edition once it arrives.