Category Archives: Legal Research

One Million Judgments Now Available on CanLII!

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CanLII — the Canadian Legal Information Institute — reached a true milestone today with the publication of the one-millionth judgemnt. Yes, there are now one million Canadian court and tribunal decisions freely available over the internet, courtesy of CanLII. It has taken only 12 years for this comprehensive online legal resource to reach the one million mark, a total that includes judgments from more than 200 legal sources. The one millionth judgment loaded into the CanLII database was a judgement from the Supreme Court of Canada — S.L. v. Commission scolaire des Chênes, 2012 SCC 7 (CanLII).

CanLII is an initiative of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, the national umbrella group for the 14 regulators of Canada’s 100,000 lawyers and 3,500 Quebec notaries in
the public interest. It was launched in 2000 on a test basis to provide efficient and free access to the growing number of judicial decisions and legislative documents available on the internet. In 2001, the Federation established CanLII as an ongoing, not-for-profit service to support the legal profession’s research needs while providing the public with permanent, open and free access to the legal heritage of all Canadian jurisdictions. Now guided by a skilled independent Board of Directors, CanLII has recently released a document establishing its strategic priorities for 2012 to 2014. Under its new plan, CanLII continues the original mission established by the Federation but will also pursue content and technological enrichment for the benefit of its professional and public users.

Read the full text of the press release.

 

iPad/iPhone App for Hein Online Now Available!

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Using HeinOnline from off campus to retrieve copies of articles and other legal materials in now easier than ever. Now you can have access to the world’s largest image-based legal research database on your iPhone or iPad. View the image-based PDF’s, access content by citation, browse by volume, navigate a volume with the electronic table of contents, and use full advanced searching techniques. HeinOnline account/authentication is required. Available now at the App Store.

Hague Academy Collected Courses Online

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The Hague Academy of International Law was founded in 1923 as an institution for the study and teaching of Public and Private International Law and related subjects. Its purpose is to encourage a thorough and impartial examination of the problems arising from international relations in the field of law. From its founding, top names in international law have taught at the Hague Academy and their research has been published as the Collected Courses since 1923 by the Dutch publisher Martinus Nijhoff, now part of Brill Publishers. It is one of the most important collections of international legal research anywhere. The Osgoode Library has always had a complete collection of the Collected Courses in print; we now have the entire collection of the Collected Courses of the Hague Academy in digital format as part of the Brill Online service.

This collection includes the following publications from the Hague Academy:

  • Collected Courses: Since 1923, the top names in international law have taught at the Hague Academy of International Law. All the volumes of the Collected Courses, which have been published since 1923, are available.
  • Periodical Indexes: Including from Volume 210 onwards, the periodical indexes are published for every ten volumes of the Collected Courses.
  • Workshops: These are the official publications from the Workshops that the academy organizes.
  • The Law Books of the Academy: This is a collection of works published by the Centre for Studies and Research that has been of particular interest and originality, which also includes the reports of the Directors of Studies together with the articles by the researchers.

The collection can be searched by author, subject or keyword. A guide to searching the Bill Online services is available here.

ProQuest Congressional Publications

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Looking for US Congressional publications? We how have access to ProQuest Congressional, the most comprehensive collection of historic and current US Congressional information available anywhere online. Coverage for many of the included collections begins in 1789 and goes right up to the current Congress. The collection includes the full text of congressional publications, finding aids, a bill tracking service, the full text of public laws and other research materials to enable both novice and experienced researchers to complete many types of research projects using a single, user-friendly interface.

Since Congress is interested in all public policy, social, and economic issues, the database is an effective source for general research in many academic disciplines, in addition to research related to specific legislative proposals and laws.

Collection Overview

  • Access the full text of congressional publications through basic subscription links or digital collection optional modules
  • Read congressional testimony by experts, administration witnesses, and affected parties
  • Discover a law’s intent by tracing its legislative history
  • Use research carried out by congressional committee staffers or Congressional Research Service experts as a source for your own research project
  • Use well-known CIS Index abstracts and controlled vocabulary indexing to locate congressional publication content
  • Retrieve authoritative statistics on a wide range of topics
  • Search the Congressional Record, the U.S. Code, Statutes at Large, Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, Rules of Congress, and political news sources
  • Use the Hot Bills & Hot Topics feature to obtain information on the leading legislative and political issues of the day

Expanded Tribunal Coverage on WestlawCanada

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WestlawCanada’s coverage of tribunal decisions continues to expand. A significant recent addition is the collection of decisions of the Discipline Committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (the “College”), which hears matters of professional misconduct or incompetence. The comprehensive collection covers decisions of the Committee from January 1, 1992 onwards.

Decision of the Discipline Committee are published on the What’s New page of the College’s website as they become available; unfortunately, this page does not seem to include a comprehensive archive. Further information about decisions can be obtained by using the College’s Doctors Search function on the.

Regulations Added to QuickCITE Citator on Quicklaw

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Now you can note up regulations from 10 jurisdictions with QuickCITE on Quicklaw. This added functionality is available for British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Federal and Nova Scotia regulations will be added by the end of this month.

With the addition of this new functionality, the relevant search form name has been changed from QuickCITE® Statute Citator to QuickCITE® Legislation Citator. To see the new icon that it appears in the title bar of any document online, click here.

For more information on how to note up legislation on QuickLAW, including regulations, click here.