I’m frequently asked to track down cases that lawyers can’t find. Most of the time the problem is an incorrect citation, but sometimes the problem is that the (usually older) case isn’t available in any online databases or print reporters. I’m now running into a new challenge: does the case exist or is it an AI hallucination?

I generally start with the assumption that the problem is an incorrect citation. In this situation, the most common issues are the misspelling of a party name or missing or incorrect numbers. I use multiple resources (e.g. CanLII, Lexis+, Westlaw Canada) and search . . . [more]

Recently, I was tasked with a particularly complicated legal research question which involved one of my favorite topics: capital cities. The information and analysis we needed was only available to us once we managed to see the pieces through the thread of this place’s capital city. The crucial need to know the capital city of this place was not apparent to us at the beginning of the legal research journey. We had clearly ignored an important step in every foreign or national legal research. But what’s in a capital city? And how can it help you in your legal research . . . [more]

Quantitative methods are at once well-established and novel when speaking about access to justice. We’ve been reporting on our activities to funders, boards, and communities for decades, but we’ve also occasionally been complacent about what message we are conveying. When I think about data on the law and how we can approach using it better, I often think about Jon Snow and his search for the source of a cholera outbreak in London in 1854. Here you can see the original map that allowed him to identify the source as the water pump on Broad Street, which he created through . . . [more]

The ease of finding a federal order in council depends greatly on when it was published.

The easiest way to get a federal OIC is through the Orders in Council online database which is a searchable database of orders in council from 1990 on. If the full text of an order listed in the database is not available, you can email the OIC Division to ask for a copy.

Orders in Council made between 1867 and 1924 can be found on the Orders in Council Research Tool through Library and Archives Canada.

Orders made between 1924 and 1990 are more . . . [more]

Legal citation isn’t what most would consider a good ‘ol time. I’m sympathetic to student complaints! But, alas, it is important and must be taught. Part of teaching is preventing bad habits. While grading assignments I’ve noticed a common practice of copying and pasting a URL in lieu of a citation, or tacking a URL on the end of a semi-complete or complete citation. Hyperlinks seem helpful and modern—just one click to get to the source! In legal writing, however, a citation should allow the reader to quickly identify, locate, and verify the source across platforms and over time. A . . . [more]

I recently challenged myself to explore various Gen AI tools to improve my plain language skills and efficiency. As noted in my previous post, Exploring Gen AI Opportunities for Plain-Language Writing, the impetus for this challenge was in part from the encouragement in the Law Society of Saskatchewan, my home jurisdiction, for lawyers to engage in continuous learning about AI and its implications for legal practice.

My usual process for creating public legal content is as follows:

1. Research: Research is conducted on the topic to create a draft framework. If a legal process is being described, the steps

It’s tempting, isn’t it? To imagine AI as a panacea.

Lawyers type their questions into an AI tool and confidently finalize a factum before getting home in time for dinner.

Self-represented litigants, overwhelmed by process and precedents, find solid answers from an AI app and breathe a sigh of relief.

Access to justice, served up on a platter of bits and bytes.

But we’re not there yet. And it’s risky to assume we are. (Ko v. Li, 2025 ONSC 2766 anyone?)

AI tools are powerful allies in advancing access to justice when used wisely. They streamline research and save . . . [more]

In May 2025, I had the pleasure of attending the Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD) in the city of Calgary. This marked my fourth time participating in this dynamic professional gathering, and as always, I left inspired, energized, and deeply connected to a community that continues to shape the future of legal information in Canada. This year’s theme, Moving Mountains Together, felt especially timely. It reflected not only the geographic grandeur of the province of Alberta but also the metaphorical mountains that law librarians and legal research professionals face—Artificial Intelligence, Access to Justice, inclusive . . . [more]

This month I interviewed Kelti McGloin, our brilliant Library Intern at the Sir James Dunn Law Library, about the development of her style guide, Best Practices for Writing About Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian Legal Context: An Evolving Style Guide for the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University.

Share a bit about your background and interests.

I am currently a Juris Doctor and Master of Information candidate at Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law expecting to graduate in spring 2026. Before attending law school, I spent a year at the University of King’s College and finished my undergraduate . . . [more]

Generally, if an act does not have any explicitly stated coming in force provisions, it comes into force on the date of Royal Assent. There are, however, exceptions.

For the period after December 31, 1918 and before July 25, 2007, any Ontario act that did not have explicitly stated coming in force provisions did not come into force on Royal Assent. Instead, depending on the date that they received Royal Assent, the coming into force provisions were as follows:

• Acts that received Royal Assent between January 1, 1919 and April 13, 1925 came into force 60 days after Royal Assent.

I’ve always prided myself on being a good writer. I spent years honing my grammar skills and natural instinct for sentence flow and ‘what just sounds right’. However, it has also become second nature to rely on some writing tools in my day-to-day work. Like most, I utilize spell check. I also rely upon tools like Hemingway App to ensure my plain-language projects are at the appropriate grade level for the intended audience. Yet I haven’t incorporated Generative AI into my writing toolkit.

What is holding me back from potentially a more efficient writing process? Even if I believe my . . . [more]

It’s pretty much impossible to get away from a discussion of how AI is going to affect legal practice these days. From AI tools that allow users to summarize documents to tools that create new precedents to tools that carry out legal research, it feels like there’s an AI tool for every part of the legal process. 

We’ve also seen the stories about legal research using AI gone bad: for example, this Federal Court case or this Ontario case. (There’s even a database of legal decisions involving AI hallucinations.) The problem in these situations is not that the lawyer . . . [more]