We’re busy planning our training for this year, and are happy to announce the following upcoming sessions are now open for registration! All of our training is open to any member of the legal community, and can count for 1 hour Substantive CPD each (LSUC). We hope to see you there!

HeinOnline Webinar

February 23, 2017, 12:00 – 1:00 PM

Join us for a lunchtime training webinar on HeinOnline, a legal research tool that LSUC lawyers can use for free from your home or office! In this session you will learn about the varying wealth of legal materials available in this database and how to access them quickly and efficiently. We will also cover how to browse and download articles and historical legislation, and how to save time by optimizing your searches.
Location: Online
Cost: 10$
Register here!

Lexis Advance Quicklaw Training

March 22, 2017, 12:00 – 1:00 PM

Quicklaw’s new research platform, Lexis Advance, has arrived! In this session, learn to search Quicklaw’s collection of Canadian primary and secondary sources using a new design that features a streamlined single intuitive search box. As well, you will learn how selecting favorite sources or pre-search filters can help narrow your starting point. Discover how to search by name, by source or topic, citation or keyword; navigate and refine search results; deliver documents; and note up cases and statutes.
Location: CCLA Library, 161 Elgin Street, Suite 2004
Cost: Free
Register here!

WestlawNext Training

April 6, 2017, 12:00 – 1:00 PM

Skip the keyword search! Learn how to use the Canadian Encyclopedic Digest, Canadian Abridgment, and KeyCite features to very quickly narrow and find the most relevant case law, legislation, and commentary that you need. Westlaw basics will also be reviewed. There is no charge for this session.
Location: CCLA Library, 161 Elgin Street, Suite 2004
Cost: Free
Register here!

 

Due to the success we had running the library’s first ever webinar back in February, we’ve decided we’d like to do it again! On Thursday, November 24 at 12:00 PM (Eastern), join us, from the comfort of your home or office, for an hour-long look at CanLII. We’ll dive into all the nice features of that website that you might not know how to do (like point-in-time legislation and noting up), as well as take a peek at LexBox, the cool (and free!) web app that allows you to organize and stay on top of your legal research. While we normally do not charge for our legal research sessions, we do have to charge a small fee for this session to cover the cost of the webinar platform. We hope that not having to contend with downtown traffic and parking will more than compensate for the charge!

To register, please click here!

While we still have one more training session scheduled for the new Lexis Advance Quicklaw, we also have another Westlaw Next Canada training session scheduled for this fall. Join us in the CCLA Library on Wednesday, November 9, 2016 at 12:00 PM for an hour-long session led by Westlaw trainer Josée Provost. If you’re using Westlaw at your office, or like to take advantage of the great, free access we have here at the library, this session will show you how to use this database to its greatest potential. There’s no cost for this session, but please RSVP with us so we know how many people to expect.

To whet your appetite for what’s to come, check out this short training video on one of my very favourite features of WestlawNext: the Canadian Abridgment. Anyone who has been to one of my training sessions knows that I love browsing features in databases, so a video of browsing the Abridgment is my legal research dream come true:

It’s finally here: the new Quicklaw!

Launched in the United States in 2011, it has been a long road to Lexis Advance Quicklaw hitting the computers at the CCLA. We received word two weeks ago that we were finally ready for the upgrade! Starting in September, access to Quicklaw on our library computers will all be through the new platform. The new look and design is much, much different than the previous version of Quicklaw, so we’ve arranged two training sessions for the Fall to help you get up to speed.

Session 1: Thursday, September 22, 2016 – 12:00 to 1:00 PM in the CCLA Library. RSVP.

Session 2: Thursday, October 20, 2016 – 12:00 to 1:00 PM in the CCLA Library. RSVP.

The instruction will be the same during each session, so attendance at only one of them is necessary (unless you really want to attend both!). As always, there is no charge for this session, but we do ask that you RSVP so that we know how many people to expect.

In the meantime, you can check out an overview of the features in this official launch video:

 

Join us on June 9, 2016 at noon in the CCLA Library for a WestlawNext Canada training session. This session will be one hour, and is absolutely free of charge.

For our Westlaw sessions, we like to bring in our local trainer Josée Provost. She is just so good that there’s no point in us trying to do better! If you haven’t really got the hang of the new Westlaw interface, or want to know more about the useful tools built into Westlaw such as the Canadian Abridgment, this is an excellent session for you to attend. If you are a learn-by-doing type, please feel free to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and Josée can give you a training password so that you can follow along with her during the session.

If you’d like to attend, please head over to our Event page and send us an RSVP.

If you can’t make it into the library, but still need some help, check out Carswell’s online learning tools. They have a whole bunch of short videos on how to use Westlaw. To give you a taste, here’s the video for one of my absolute favourite functions in Westlaw – noting up a statutory provision:

Our popular “Finding the Perfect Precedent” research session is back: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at noon in the CCLA Library.

We get a lot of requests at the library for precedents. A lot. Accordingly, we like to make sure the library’s precedents collection is on point – we want to be able to offer you the best selection we can. This research session will cover the resources we have, how we’d use them, and also uncover some lesser-known precedent options for when O’Brien’s and Quicklaw won’t cut it. If you need a great refresher (or intro!) to finding precedents, this session is for you.

This session is free, but please click here to RSVP so we know how many people to expect. In the future, we’ll look into providing this session as a webinar, but we won’t be running “Finding the Perfect Precedents” again for several months in any format, so don’t miss out!

On February 26 at noon, the CCLA Library is hosting its first ever webinar! For this free research session that you can do from the comfort of your home or office, what better product to look at than CanLII, the legal research tool that you can also use for free from your home or office! We’ll also look at Lexbox, which is the nifty app for your Google Chrome browser that allows you to save your research and set up notifications for when new cases come out or legislation is amended.

Again, this research session will be free (and who doesn’t love free!), but we’ll need you to RSVP here. The day before the session, we’ll send you an email with the link you need to get into the webinar. Also, in order to hear us, you’ll need to either have speakers or earphones for your computer. Sign up today, and we look forward to welcoming you – online – on the 26th!