Last November, I found a job posting for a part-time law librarian position. My hopes were low; I was still a Master of Information (MI) student, and I had no law library experience. Regardless, I applied. I could not believe my luck when I secured the position. To say I was elated would be an understatement. That feeling lasted about a day, then panic set in… What did I know about the law and law librarianship?

Desperate to weave an informatic safety blanket, I scoured the internet and library catalogues for information on early career law librarianship. I was desperate . . . [more]

For Professor Seánna Howard, Director of the International Human Rights Advocacy Workshop, international legal research begins with a simple but important recognition: the most valuable sources are not always the most familiar ones. Her research has taken her to Tucson, where she joined the renowned Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy (IPLP) Program at the University of Arizona College of Law. Along the way, she has worked as an advocate, lawyer, researcher, independent expert, and educator on issues involving Indigenous Peoples, international human rights law, and social justice.

Her work also reflects the importance of developing research strategies for areas . . . [more]

Last night, I danced the night away on a Toronto rooftop with 500 other women at a sober rave. The bass pounded up through the floor, spreading from our feet to our hearts. We moved, sang, drank slushies, laughed. We connected.

It was joyous.

In the way that people often think of joy. It was loud and boisterous and … obvious.

There are quieter joys in life.

I love slipping into used bookstores. Breathing in the musty, paperback smell while I look around till I get a good feeling from a dilapidated book by an author I don’t know. A . . . [more]

In my last post, The Dangers of Catastrophizing in Client Communications, I outlined the negative impact of catastrophizing on lawyer well being. While lawyers need to predict outcomes and envision worst-case scenarios, several conditions such chronic pain, anxiety, depression and fatigue are exacerbated by catastrophic thinking. I proposed that our catastrophic thinking could bleed into our client communications and cause them similar harm. We must strike a balance between utilizing our catastrophizing skillset and delivering options to clients in a way that allows them to make informed decisions without causing unnecessary anxiety.

Substituting catastrophic language with more neutral language . . . [more]

In recent years, the number of law librarians in public sector and academic roles has declined. Most notably, the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General (MAG) has reduced the staff of its Toronto-based law library to the point that, as of sometime in 2025, it no longer has a professionally staffed law library.^[2] In other words, no actual librarians work at the law library of the Ministry of the Attorney General.^[3] This deprofessionalization took place quietly and gradually, with no public announcement, no discussion in the legislature, and no opportunity for public scrutiny.

The MAG is not the . . . [more]

This is a fairly specific problem: sometimes a case quotes a section from an older edition of a book and you need to find the quotation in the current edition of the book.

Assuming the most recent edition is available electronically, generally the easiest way is to search for a portion of the quote in the new edition. However, if the wording has significantly changed it may be hard to identify the equivalent in the new edition.

The second way to do this is by using both a copy of the old edition and a copy of the current edition. . . . [more]

This summer our law library intern (shout out to Bailey Kaye!) is reviewing our archival casebook collection for a digitization project. Among them was a casebook for exchange students arriving at Dalhousie Law School in 1978. It outlined an introduction to the common law, as provided by the Sir James Dunn Law Library. In this casebook, the Sir James Dunn Law Library included a helpful list of general information about library etiquette. Let’s review how you were to conduct yourself in the law library of 1978, shall we?

The one rule that has survived nearly word-for-word, across nearly fifty years . . . [more]

I’m thrilled to share with all Slaw readers this great opportunity from our dedicated law students at the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law. I work closely with these students either in the Journal or in the courses I teach and I can confidently see that they are hardworking, intellectually engaged and eager to make an impact. The topics of the 2027 Symposium taking place in Tucson will include International Trade Law, Digitization of International Commercial Law, and Indigenous Peoples and International Economic Law. These areas of study have been an integral part of the Journal since its inception . . . [more]

Queen’s University Library has added a new chapter on “An Introduction to Researching Indigenous Legal Orders” to their Canadian Legal Research Manual.

The introduction to the chapter notes that it “provides a very brief introduction to researching Indigenous legal orders. It is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather a starting point primarily intended for non-Indigenous law students researching in an academic setting.”

It includes an overview of the terminology, an overview of sources of Indigenous law, a discussion of ethical considerations and limitations of resources, as well as a list of further reading. Suggested resources include . . . [more]

…All my notions – notions of good and evil, of pleasant and unpleasant, of funny and serious, of ugly and beautiful – are essentially middle-class notions; my taste in books and food and clothes, my sense of honour, my table manners, my turns of speech, my accent, even the characteristic movements of my body, are the products of a special kind of upbringing and a special niche about half-way up the social hierarchy.

-George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

Many in the legal profession who came from a working- or middle-class background can relate intimately to Orwell’s account of . . . [more]

“Where’s my book?”

“On your bookcase.”

A pause. “Where on the bookcase?”

“The middle shelf.”

Another pause. “Where on the middle shelf?”

I let that hang for a second, my hands covered in the pie pastry I’d been rolling out. Maybe, if I just gave it some time, the book would reveal itself from its sophisticated hiding place of … the middle shelf of a tiny three-shelf bookcase.

It did not. So, I did what mothers do and retrieved the book.

I used to tell this story from my kid’s childhood for laughs, but it points to a deeper truth. . . . [more]

Through my own journey with chronic pain, I am acutely aware of the impact language can have on your health. More specifically, I recognize the role catastrophizing plays in magnifying pain and that simple word substitutions can facilitate healing. It has also triggered a recognition that the language I use with clients may also negatively contribute to their anxiety.

Catastrophizing involves exaggerating the severity of a situation and jumping to the worst possible conclusion. As noted in the recent Psychology Today article, “Catastrophizing”:

Everyone has negative thoughts. But for many people, negative thinking can spin out of control and be