The CCLA Library may have closed its physical doors for the time being, but we’re still able to assist you remotely with many of your legal research needs! Here’s what we can still help with :

• Case & Looseleaf Searching: We still have access to Quicklaw Advance, WestlawNext, and Proview and are able to run keyword searches for you on a wide variety of topics.
• Case & Document Retrieval: Missed the chance to grab a remote HeinOnline password while the Great Library is closed? Let us know if there are any journal articles you might need and we can forward them along to you!
• Precedents: We might not have our print collection, but there are a ton of precedents available in O’Briens and Quicklaw that we can search for you to assist with your drafting.
• Legislative Research: Historical legislation is confusing! (but we love doing it!) Let us help point you in the right direction with tracing or helping to find point-in-time legislation.

Unfortunately for the time being we are not able to assist with:

• Scanning Print Materials
• Interlibrary Loans
• Eliminating pandemic-related anxiety (let’s all breathe and do some yoga)

So please don’t hesitate to send us an email if there’s anything we may be able to help with as you’re locked up at home! Wishing you and your families health and safety.

Back in August, we mentioned that software and hardware upgrades at the CCLA necessitated our taking down the CCLA Conference Papers Database on our website. For almost 10 years we provided free access to our excellent archive of conference materials, and whatever was going to replace the database had to be great. We believe we’ve found the perfect solution. 

As of today, select papers from the CCLA’s four major conferences will be available on CanLII! CanLII’s Commentary collection has been growing steadily in the past few years, bringing more and more free and high–quality legal information to its platform. Freely accessible from anywhere, the collection has been a monumental step forward in access to justice. When CanLII said they would host our conference papers collection, we were thrilled!  

The collection on CanLII currently is just from 2018; it will eventually date back to 2014, and we will continue to add new materials to the collection after each conference. Which materials are included are decided by the editorial team at Lexum (the platform CanLII lives on), so if you want your paper or presentation to be included, be sure to make it awesome. If you have contributed in the past and you’d rather not have your work on CanLII, that’s okay too – just let us know. 

If you want to go check out the collection, here’s a direct link to the “Conference Proceedings” page  on CanLII. Materials will come up in search results too, under the “Commentary” tab. 

As for the materials from previous years and the materials that did not get posted to CanLII, you can always request those from us. On each of the conference pages on the CCLA website, you can find a Table of Contents for each conference. Call, email, or visit us and we’ll set you up with those materials. 

Thank you to CanLII for giving our conference papers collection a new home!