Dear Tri-Agency,

I was delighted to see your announcement last summer that the Tri-Agency, representing Canada’s major research funders (CHIR, NSERC, SSHRC), have decided to review your Open Access Policy on Publications. Your continuing efforts to increase the public’s ability to consult research and scholarship through this policy are admirable. Having seen your invitation for public input on the review process, I wanted to make a small contribution, as a professor of education who started a Public Knowledge Project 25 years ago to support public access to research, and as a school teacher before that . . . [more]

One of the problems with generative AI is that there are so many possibilities and inconclusive data. How often does it hallucinate? Each system claims certain odds, but who is certain? I’ve been mulling over a few hypotheticals where AI has a defined failure rate and the harms are clear and predictable. Of course there are dangers to generative AI beyond the hallucination rate, but I’d like to ignore all of that to puzzle over three variables: time, harm, and benefit.

Assume there are 100 private-school students and twice a year they write a term paper independently. This year a . . . [more]

I’ve been fortunate in my career to be part of new innovative projects and to help expand the scope of longstanding organizations. My most recent role is Policy and Communications Advisor with the Canadian Lawyers Insurance Association (CLIA). Never heard of CLIA? For an organization that has been around for 35 years, we have an image problem. Or perhaps a lack of image problem. Many of the lawyers we insure have never heard of us.

CLIA is a reciprocal insurance exchange formed in 1988 as a direct response to a need for more effective professional liability coverage for Canadian . . . [more]

Teaching a class on Foreign, Comparative and International Legal (FCIL) research makes complete sense in Tucson, Arizona. The city of Tucson is located an hour away from a major international border which is constantly featured in local, national and international news. The proximity to the US-Mexico Border makes the University of Arizona College of Law, the ideal place from where to study and analyze other national legal systems, how to compare them and the impact of international law and transnational emergencies. These are some of the themes students engage with in my class, among many others. However, I also strive . . . [more]

Last October, I was appointed a director on the board of Canada Legal Information Institute (CanLII). Becoming a director on the board of CanLII is a dream come true for me. It represents not only a personal achievement but also an opportunity to give back to a cause I deeply believe in – free access to legal information. I’ll share my journey and the reasons behind my decision to join CanLII’s board as a director.

A Quest for Access to Legal Information

My journey into the world of legal information access began during my time as a law student in . . . [more]

Contrary to popular belief (i.e., that of my closest friends and family), a lot of people care about the McGill Guide. This is evidenced by the many tweets, blog posts, and articles that refer to the Guide. As the Citations Editor of the 10th edition, I’ve read all of them. While I found many to be insightful and helped me through the course of my mandate, I noticed something: few seemed to understand the actual process behind writing the McGill Guide. This article aims to fill this conceptual void by providing a firsthand account of how the 10th edition was . . . [more]

Seth Godin writes in his book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable, “The only purpose of starting is to finish, and while the projects we do are never really finished, they must ship.” This is the mantra that keeps me going through every legal information content project I’ve been involved with as a knowledge engineer. But sudden and what often seem like inevitable changes in funding, timelines or resource allotment can be overwhelming. Being told to pivot or be resilient in the face of adversity without practical solutions is only so helpful.

I found myself in such a situation, as briefly . . . [more]

Lawyers read more than ordinary people, and writing is the inverse of reading, so all of that reading ought to make great writers of us. Nevertheless, for many lawyers of my acquaintance, any sort of writing outside of the ordinary business of law can be a source of misery and self-torture. I have a suggestion for you—a book that inspired me to reject my self-created barriers to becoming a more serious and dedicated writer. The book is the second edition of How to Write a Lot, by Paul Silvia. PhD.

Dr. Silvia is a professor of social psychology at the . . . [more]

The hype around generative AI and legal research continues, and it seems everyone has an opinion. There are concerns about use of AI in practice, but there is less clarity about how to approach finding sustainable solutions. It is however apparent that we need to consider the risks associated with using these systems, especially those that were not designed for certain uses. This is particularly important because general purpose tools like ChatGPT are likely to continue to be developed, and, given the complexity of navigating legal information, if they can be used with law they will be.

The first solution . . . [more]

Revised with comments on 22/10/2023.

The 10^th edition of the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (the McGill Guide) was published in the summer of 2023. Having been six years since the 9^th edition was published, the most recent edition has made necessary revisions that improve the accessibility and inclusivity of sources. Anecdotally, the revision that seems to have garnered notable attention is Jurisprudence Rule 3.1: Hierarchy of sources. There are several changes worthy of discussion in the 10^th edition, but the focus of this post is to explain the new hierarchy of sources for jurisprudence . . . [more]

Let me ask you a question. If you are a researcher interested in comparing laws and regulations related to indigenous peoples in several countries, which keywords should you use to find relevant information? Aboriginal Law, First Nations, Native Law, Tribal Law, Indian Law, something else, all of the above? Well, it depends. For those of you who have engaged in comparative research, be it legal or not, you know that the answer is always “it depends”. The reality is that different jurisdictions and legal systems have evolved and continue to do so in a myriad of disparate ways. . . . [more]

I hope you have been having a memorable summer. I have been pleasantly surprised by how many of my family and friends have come through and near Milwaukee. We are gearing up for the first Republican debates to be held here on August 23^rd. This debate in Milwaukee is only the first Republican debate of the 2024 presidential election cycle. Then the Republican Convention will be held here from July 15-18, 2024. That should make next summer very interesting.

Since my last post there have been more research updates from the awesome librarians at the Law Library of . . . [more]