Canada Has a New Open Access Legal Citation Guide

The Canadian Open Access Legal (COAL) Citation Guide/Guide canadien de la référence juridique en accès libre (RJAL) is now available: https://canlii.ca/t/7nc6q

Over the course of two years, law librarians from across Canada worked together to create the COAL-RJAL Guide. The English version of the Guide is now freely available and hosted on CanLII (2024 CanLIIDocs 830), and the French version is in progress. The Guide is intended to be used throughout the legal field and incorporates feedback contributed by reviewers from Canadian courts, law firms, law journals, law societies, and law schools.

The COAL-RJAL Guide originated with two primary drivers: the belief that we could create a citation guide that better meets the needs of Canadian legal writers and researchers, and the goal of creating a citation guide that will be accessible to everyone, via an open access publishing model. The idea for the Guide began with the Canadian Association of Law Libraries’ Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Group, where members voiced their frustrations over Canada’s lack of an open access legal citation guide.

Citation is a language of law that must be learned in order to participate in the legal system and in legal scholarship. Librarians are often their institution’s experts on legal citation and are often responsible not only for ensuring access to resources on the subject, but also for teaching it. Librarians hold a special expertise in legal citation that has been utilized by traditional publishers, but has until now not been organized by members of the profession into a resource of our own. This has meant using our skills to promote systems that are not necessarily compatible with our professional values, especially access to justice. This has also resulted in a major expense for libraries attempting to provide their patrons with the citation tools they need to learn about and engage with the legal system and legal scholarship. Being open access and created by law librarians, the Guide remedies these problems.

The idea of creating a Canada-wide open access legal citation guide was not new, but we were successful where others were not, primarily for several reasons: we had permission to use the University of British Columbia Law Library Legal Citation Guide as a nucleus from which we could work, the shock of recent price hikes for citation materials commonly held by law libraries, a dedicated team willing to put in lots of time and effort, and good project management. The ability for us to meet via Zoom also aided in the success of the project.

While developing the guide, we were conscious of balancing the needs of its user groups, from judges and judicial assistants to self-represented litigants. We included clear rule explanations and numerous examples that will make sense to all user groups.

After the English version of the Guide was drafted, we had 45+ external reviewers from various user groups, jurisdictions, and types of Canadian legal settings review the guide and provide their feedback. (The only user group we didn’t get feedback from was self-represented litigants.) We went through the feedback line by line and spent many hours discussing all the suggestions we received. Sometimes we made changes due to the feedback, and sometimes we realized that we had already thought of the option presented and had, for various reasons, decided against it. All the feedback we received, whether ultimately incorporated or not, was very much appreciated.

Now freely available, the Guide will reduce the financial burden on law students, new lawyers, and sole practitioners, among others, and will also support self-represented litigants, libraries, and other organizations with an access to justice mission.

The Editorial Board of COAL-RJAL is a national, bilingual, and bijural group, committed to continuity of the Guide and continuous knowledge building. Regular updates to the Guide will centre the needs of the legal community by incorporating user feedback and responding to emerging developments, while maintaining long-term consistency. Besides publishing a French version in the near future, we plan to expand the Guide to cover citing additional types of sources.

We realize that some user groups will require training on the Guide, so a training webinar will be offered this fall. We’re also happy to provide custom training sessions for institutions and organizations that want to adopt the Guide and train their staff. If this is something you’re interested in, please get in touch with us.

The legal community’s support and expertise is the foundation for COAL-RJAL’s success. Explore the Guide on CanLII for writing, editing, or teaching, and give us your feedback. The Guide will be enriched by contributions from a diverse group of people sharing their knowledge. Connect with the Editorial Board at coal.rjal@ubc.ca for feedback, volunteer inquiries, and more.

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Much thanks to the rest of the COAL-RJAL Editorial Group for contributing to this post.