Useful Things

Here you'll find a collection of resources hosted on or developed by Slaw, all designed to make your legal work on the internet just that little bit easier. Some of the resources have a page on Slaw all their own, while others are described and made available on this page. The table of contents immediately below will direct you to the proper place.

Please let us know via the Contact link in the main menu if something is amiss or doesn't work the way it should. And let us know, too, if there are useful things you'd like to see here that we haven't yet come up with.

  1. TOROG:Toronto Opinions Group, Memos and Precedent Opinions
  2. Access to Law-Related Information in Canada in The Digital Age, LLM Thesis by Ted Tjaden
  3. CanCourts on Twitter
  4. Canadian Law Blogs Search Form
  5. Slaw Quick Referrers
  6. CanLII Search Bookmarklets
  7. Quix

 

CanCourts on Twitter

We hooked up CanLII RSS feeds for some recent court decisions to corresponding Twitter accounts, so those who use Twitter can get announcements of new decisions. You can find, and follow, the Twitter accounts of any or all of the following with these links:

 
Slaw Quick Referrers

What's a referrer? It's simply an easy-to-remember shortcut for a URL. We've made a bunch based on Slaw's brief web address, slaw.ca; so here are a few referrers for sites that you may want to visit from time to time. I've tried to make them easy to remember so it'll be a piece of cake for you to get to the target site without having to use your list of bookmarks.

One illustration will suffice: if you want to go to the site for Hansard, i.e. the debates in the House of Commons, just enter slaw.ca/hansard

Referrer Site
   
table Canadian Legislation Table
1867 Constitution Act, 1867
elaws OR onlaw Ontario's E-Laws Website
canlaw OR fedlaw Justice Laws Website
ccc Canadian Criminal Code
charter Charter & Constitution Act, 1982
fedlaw OR canlaw Justice Laws Website
hansard House of Commons Debates
legis LEGISinfo
scc Supreme Court of Canada
sccj Supreme Court judgments
tax Income Tax Act

 

CanLII Search Bookmarklets

I've made six distinct bookmarklets, each of which searches CanLII for something different. The list below should make it clear. In all cases, if you have a term highlighted on a web page, the bookmarklet will search for that term; if nothing is selected, the bookmarklet will ask you for your search term. To make these your own, you need only to drag the bookmarklets you want to the shortcuts bar of your browser — or right click on any and save to your chosen location.

Now a caveat: I work on a Mac, so these may or may not work in Windows. Please test them out and let me know which works on what browser in that operating system. If they fail, I'll try to remake a batch for Windows. On a Mac they work in Safari, Firefox and Google Chrome. (And for our confrères dans la Belle Province, because Javascript doesn't handle accented characters well, see this comment by Xavier Beauchamp-Tremblay for advice.)

 

Quix

Quix is a compendium of handy bookmarklets, most of which are stored on the Quix website. The result is that you need only invoke the Quix text-entry box with a single bookmarklet on your browser to have dozens of mini programs available to you. Just grab the link from the Quix site and put it on your personal toolbar. (There’s a page telling you how to do that for any of seven browsers.)

Thus, entering g calliope searches Google for calliope, entering f calliope searches Flickr for calliope etc. You can see all of the available commands by entering help into the Quix text-entry box.

What's particularly interesting is that you can add your own commands to Quix. You simply copy the basic text file containing the default commands and modify it according to directions on the site; then you put your modified text file where your browser can find it.

I've modified mine to do a few things. I’ve improved the Google search function such that I don’t need a command shortcut — I just enter my search terms — and then I get 100 results; I’ve created a command “slaw” that searches Slaw; and I’ve created a set of commands for searching for text in various CanLII databases: cancase, canstat, scc, onca, qcca, bcca, abca. Feel free to copy my quix.txt file, which you can see here.

Or you can simply drag this bookmarklet using my text file to your toolbar: Quix+Slaw

SlawTips      

SlawTips Current Awareness
Wednesday, February 22

There are two possible approaches to personal current awareness: Develop excellent searching skills so that you can find what you need when you need it Pick a fairly narrow specialty … »»

Research

SlawTips Top 10 Financial Errors: #10 Rely on the Lottery for Your Partnership Retirement Plan
Thursday, February 16

“It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating” was said once by Oscar Wilde. The final tip in this series is the capstone issue in our … »»

Practice

SlawTips Deciphering Acroynyms
Wednesday, February 15

I wrote about the trouble I have with Acronyms yesterday at Slaw. Today’s Tip: Use an Acronym Dictionary! I have a nice little book on my reference shelves called Acrobuster. … »»

Research

noted on Slaw    

MLB Selected Case Summaries    

These summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book.
More information.
  • Moody Estate, Re 2011 ABQB 222

    Limitation of Actions - Actions in contract - Actions for debt - General

    Moody died on December 3, 2005, leaving four adult children. Pursuant to Moody’s will two of her children, James and Tyrell, were appointed executors of the estate. It was alleged that, during her ...

  • McLean v. Law Society of Saskatchewan 2012 SKCA 7

    Barristers and Solicitors - Discipline - Suspension - For professional misconduct

    McLean pled guilty five counts of conduct unbecoming a lawyer. The Discipline Committee suspended him from practice for four months and placed him on indefinite supervision. McLean appealed the length of the penalty.

    The Saskatchewan ...

  • Kelly et al. v. Energy Resources Conservation Board (Alta.) et al. 2012 ABCA 19

    Mines and Minerals - Operation of mines, quarries and wells - Licences and permits - Appeals or judicial review - Standing - Costs

    Grizzly Resources Ltd. (Grizzly). made an applications to the Energy Resources Conservation Board to drill two sour gas wells on the same site. ...

  • R. v. Crain (R.N.) 2012 SKCA 8

    Narcotic Control - Offences - Trafficking - Elements of

    The accused was charged with trafficking in cocaine. The trial judge granted the accused’s motion to discharge the charge. The Crown appealed.

    The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial.

    Link ...

TalkLaw/ParLoi    

This is a listing of a few upcoming events in Canada of interest to lawyers, law students, legal librarians, and others involved in the practice of law.

Clicking on any event in the list below will give you access to more information and to links allowing you to see the full entry and to add the event to your own calendar.

Click this link for a fuller version of the TalkLaw/ParLoi calendar of events and for instructions as to how to add events and calendars to your own calendar.

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