Disaggregate verb. used without object. Meaning: to separate into component parts. Synonyms: ventilate, distill, itemize, breakdown, subdivide.

An April 25 press release from ICLR (The Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales) reported:

[ICLR] has started the process of disaggregating its law reports from the online services operated by LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Subscribers to these services based elsewhere in the world will not be affected. The process of removing ICLR content from these providers will take effect on 1 January 2017. Thereafter, the ICLR – the publisher of

Every year, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) hands out the Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing.

It honours a publisher that has demonstrated excellence by publishing a work, series, website or e-product that makes a significant contribution to legal research and scholarship.

The nominees this year are:

• BC CLE Online (Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia): CLE Online is the home of CLEBC’s online subscription services
• Quickscribe 2.0 (Quickscribe Services Ltd.): Quickscribe provides up-to-date consolidated legislation, point-in-time legislation, and the current status of bills, regulations and Orders in Council from British Columbia
• WestlawNext Canada

Although its use is of questionable significance in the age of the internet, many of us mark our public writing, including our public legal education materials, with a copyright statement asserting an exclusive right to control the use and distribution of our work. This is a fairly normal thing to do, and almost universal among legal aid providers; after all, when you’ve sweat blood over something, you want to keep it for yourself and you don’t want to discover someone else claiming it as their own or using it for their own purposes.

I certainly felt that way and my . . . [more]

Former slaw.ca columnist and online legal publisher Sean Hocking has just launched his new Cannabis Law Report. From his base in Hong Kong, Sean has created Your Global Resource on Cannabis Law, Regulation and Cases . He describes it as the first service to document legal information about cannabis worldwide.

While I am sceptical about “global legal publishing initiatives” in general, this one may take hold. Sean has got both the timing and the content right.

None of this is rocket science but it’s all moving at a rapid pace as you know today in Canada and the states . . . [more]

The Canadian Bar Association and the Law Society of the United Kingdom have recently published a selection of guides to common legal issues. The legal help guide model deserves close attention from government and the bar as a means of improving access to justice by improving public legal literacy, a concept I’ve written about elsewhere.

Some of the existing materials

The Law Society has published twelve guides in the Common Legal Issues section of its website, covering topics like buying a home, making a will, getting a divorce, probating an estate and setting up a . . . [more]

Pretty much every organization that serves the public and sees itself as having a mandate to educate is starving for new content, and if not new content then new content providers. Libraries, drop-in and community centres and social service groups usually welcome anyone prepared to provide a seminar and, best of all, they’ll do the advertising for you.

Providing public lectures, seminars and workshops is an easy and fun way (I was going to say something more bookish like “stimulating” here, but it really is fun) to improve access to justice that will take a minimum amount of time . . . [more]

In most urban centres, you can’t swing a stick without hitting a social service or social service connected agency. Most of these agencies are glad to have any legal materials they can get their hands on, and most are willing to share the materials they have. Most importantly, each of these agencies serves a specific target population with specific legal needs.

Groups like SUCCESS Settlement Services in British Columbia, for example, help newcomers to Canada overcome language and cultural barriers; groups like the Atira Women’s Resource Centre help women dealing with abuse through advocacy and education. Various other social service . . . [more]

When we leave law school to become articling students and then junior associates, we will likely spend the majority of our time researching and writing memos. Knowing this, how is it possible that law students can leave school without a strong foundation in these skills?

All law students at UVic have at least some exposure to legal research and writing through taking Legal Research and Writing (LRW) in first year. However, this is our first introduction into legal research and writing. At this early stage in our education, it is difficult to fully appreciate and absorb all the material covered . . . [more]

Information about the law and dispute resolution processes has been identified as a key barrier to justice in most of the major reports, although in two contradictory senses: a lack of information and a confusing surplus of information. The report of the the Family Justice Working Group (PDF) to the Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters phrased the problem nicely:

There is a broad consensus in the literature that early information is enormously helpful to separating families, especially — but not only — where spouses are unrepresented. …

Considerable family law information is now available

I have now taken the better part of two legal research and writing courses (though the term paper still looms) and on the whole I have found them to be a beneficial to my legal research both in other classes and in the workplace. However, if there is one thing that I find these courses a bit short on, it is direct feedback and a corresponding opportunity to put this feedback into practice, and observe and evaluate the end results.

While I was an undergraduate I had the opportunity to participate in a writing intensive class as both a student . . . [more]

The Importance of Keeping a Record

When I registered for ALRW I thought the most important improvement in my research skills would relate to finding and locating relevant legal materials. However, learning to keep a detailed record of my research has been the most valuable skill I’ve developed.

I kept a record in the past but I didn’t give too much importance to it and it tended to be recorded a bit haphazardly. I kept track of the relevant cases, statutes, and principles I came across but did not keep a detailed record of search terms I used or the . . . [more]