What’s Your Favourite Legal Website?

Posted on by ktribe

As law librarians, Jen and I spend a lot of time thinking about legal resources – we’re constantly locating useful research materials for people, sourcing new books and electronic resources for the library’s collection, and thinking about instructional resources that we can create to assist you in doing your research. It’s only natural, then, for us to be a part of the CCLA’s Website Content Development Committee, which helps to source content and resources to be posted on the CCLA Website.

Of course, not just any resource can be posted online due to copyright (otherwise, we might just have a field day scanning legal textbooks and magazines for your viewing pleasure). Luckily for us, though, there is a lot of free and useful legal information available on the web these days, including blogs, research sites, not-for-profit and government databases, and scholarly legal journals and magazines.

Jen and I try to keep in the know by following local blogs, sharing resources with other librarians, and keeping track of the legal community on Twitter, but we’re sure that there must be great blogs and resources out there that we’re missing out on. That’s why we’d love to hear about your favourite legal website, blog, or online resource. If there’s something out there that you find useful or interesting, please drop us a line and let us know about it! Send us an email, message us on Twitter, or leave a comment below.

Sharpen Your Skills at the CCLA Library

Posted on by ktribe

The CCLA Library is pleased to offer free training sessions next month on two of the most popular and widely consulted legal research databases used in the practice of law today: LexisNexis Quicklaw and Westlaw Canada. Access to these powerful research databases is available for free on all the desktops in the CCLA Library, and CCLA Members, articling students, and members of the Bar and their staff are encouraged to take advantage of this access by visiting the CCLA Library.

Specialists will be joining us to offer guidance and training on how to more effectively search for useful case law, legislation, and commentary. Learn how to find results more quickly, and narrow them to find more specific and powerful precedents to support your arguments. Take your search beyond basic search terms by learning to effectively use case digests, note-up features, and Boolean operators. These sessions are an excellent opportunity for students and experienced legal professionals alike to refresh, sharpen, or broaden their online research skills. We encourage legal professionals of all skill levels to sit in on a session and learn some new techniques.

The sessions will be held in the CCLA Library, located in Room 2004 on the main floor of the Ottawa Courthouse, at 161 Elgin Street. Please feel free to bring your lunch; iced tea and snacks will be served.

Session dates and times are as follows:

Westlaw Canada – Wednesday, March 9th, from 1:00 – 2:00 PM.
LexisNexis Quicklaw – Wednesday, March 30th, from 1:00 – 2:00 PM.

Please send a quick email to the CCLA’s Reference Librarian, Kaitlyn Tribe (ktribe@ccla-abcc.ca) if you are interested in attending either of the sessions. We hope to see you there!

The CCLA Library is always interested in providing better training and services to members of the legal community. If you have any comments, questions, or ideas for training session topics, dates and times, or services, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re always happy to receive ideas and feedback!

New Titles – December 2010

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

Happy new year, readers!  While we’ve all moved on to 2011, there’s still the matter of our new books from last month to write about.  Last month, we received a great number of new editions of annual titles, as well as many, many continuing professional development materials.  We’re actually a bit swamped with them right now!  We’ll list them below, but you might not see them on our shelves just yet.  If you just can’t wait to get your hands on a copy, however, please stop by the desk – we might have it available for you to peruse before it’s ready to be on the shelves.

Since we have so many titles this month, I’ll proceed with the list without too much preamble.  As always, please let us know if you have any book recommendations for our collection!  Your recommendations are quite invaluable to us, and we love being able to put new titles on the shelf that we know our clients would like to use.

Texts

Protection of Privacy in the Canadian Private and Health Sectors 2011 (Carswell)

The 2011 Annotated Divorce Act (Carswell)

Canadian Environmental Legislation, 2010-2011 Edition (Canada Law Book)

Federal Access to Information and Privacy Legislation Annotated 2011 (Carswell)

Consolidated Bank Act and Regulations 2010-2011 (Carswell)

The 2011 Annotated Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of Canada (Carswell)

Document Registration Guide, 12th Edition (CCH)

The 2011 Annotated Ontario Labour Relations Act (Carswell)

The 201 Annotated Ontario Family Law Act (Carswell)

The 2011 Annotated Ontario Landlord and Tenant Statutes (Carswell)

The 2011 Annotated Ontario Children’s Law Reform Act (Carswell)

The 2011 Annotated Competition Act (Carswell)

Taxation of Trusts and Estates – A Practitioner’s Guide 2011 (Carswell)

Department of Finance Technical Notes – Income Tax, 22nd Edition (Carswell)

The 2011 Annotated Indian Act and Aboriginal Constitutional Provisions (Carswell)

The 2011 Annotated Ontario Human Rights Code (Carswell)

The Annotated Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security Act, 10th Edition, 2011 (CCH)

The 2011 Annotated Construction Lien Act (Carswell)

The 2011 Annotated Canada Labour Code (Carswell)

Canadian Immigration and Refugee Law Practice 2011 (LexisNexis)


Continuing Professional Development

Impaired and “Over 80” 2010 (LSUC)

Powerful Pleadings (LSUC)

The Six-Minute Family Law Lawyers 2010 (LSUC)

The Six-Minute Real Estate Lawyer 2010 (LSUC)

Taxation Issues in Real Estate Transactions (LSUC)

Securities Law Update 2010 (LSUC)

Corporate Commercial Law Seminar (Hamilton Law Association)

How to Succeed in the New Era of Discoveries (LSUC)

18th Annual Immigration Law Summit (LSUC)

New Lawyer Practice Series – Real Estate 2010 (LSUC)

Emerging Issues in Health Law (LSUC)

13th Annual Estates and Trusts Summit (LSUC)

Emerging Issues in Real Estate (Hamilton Law Association)

The 24th Annual Joint Insurance Seminar (Ontario Insurance Adjusters Association / Hamilton Law Association)




Library Holiday Schedule

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

The library will have reduced hours over the next few weeks.  Here’s our schedule for the holiday season:

Monday, December 20 – Thursday, December 23 – 8:30 am – 5:00 pm
Thursday, December 24 – 8:30 am – 12:00 pm
Monday, December 27 – CLOSED
Tuesday, December 28 – CLOSED
Wednesday, December 29 – Thursday, December 30 – 8:30 am – 5:00 pm
Friday, December 31 – 8:30 am – 12:00 pm
Monday January 3 – CLOSED

If you’re a CCLA member, you will still be able to access the library during those times when it is closed.

We’ll be back to our regular schedule on Tuesday, January 4, 2011.


We Like it Free: Legal Info on the Web

Posted on by ktribe

by Katie Tribe

Increasingly, Canadian legal information is made freely accessible online. Unless historical research is needed, it is rare to have to consult paper materials for legislation; it is now updated online very quickly after the law has changed, whereas it may take weeks for print materials to reflect the changes. While paid databases still offer valuable features, such as automatic citing references and links to secondary sources, notable cases of interest are also regularly made available via a number of government and not-for-profit sites, and come directly from the court where they were heard. Arguably, and of course depending on the particular skills of the researcher, certain types of primary legal information are now more reliable and authoritative when found online than when they are in print.

Perhaps the best and most well-known example of this is CanLII, the website run by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, which compiles Canadian legislation and case law and makes it searchable and downloadable via a user-friendly database. CanLII is a wonderful resource, as it allows researchers to enter search terms in the same way they might when using other popular search engines. It also has some very impressive features, especially when considering that it is a free resource. It recently added a “Reflex Record,” feature, which allows researchers to view related decisions and legislation and cases cited, and also adds subject headings, or keywords, below each case in its search results.

While CanLII is wonderful at organizing and helping researchers find Canadian legislation, it’s not the only option out there. Researchers and legal professionals can also often go directly to the source. The Supreme Court of Canada, Federal Court of Canada, Ontario Court of Appeal, Tax Court of Canada, and nearly all Ontario Administrative Tribunals make their recent decisions, if not all decisions, available for free online. The federal and provincial governments also make all legislation, including bills and regulations, freely available online, and their databases aren’t too bad, either. The CCLA Library maintains a list of Legal Links to government and not-for-profit sites that are useful for general legal research. We encourage you to have a look, check back often, and email us if you have any suggestions for new sites that may be useful to the legal community.

On that note, you’ll notice via the front page of the CCLA Website that we are currently looking for official CCLA Website Contributors for the Practice Portal areas of our site. The Practice Portal areas of the site are where we post articles, resources, forms, and website links that are relevant to specific practice areas, for example Family Law or Criminal Law. We’d really appreciate any and all content submissions, and no suggestion is too large or small; it may be a simple link, form, or resource suggestion, or a comprehensive opinion piece, article, or case summary – we’d love to see it either way. Help us to increase the amount of Canadian legal info available for free on the web by submitting some content. Send us a quick email to info@ccla-abcc.ca and we’ll be in touch! For more details, check out the recent call for submissions on the CCLA Website.

New Titles – November 2010

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

From amongst November’s new titles, there are several we’re excited to highlight in this post. The first is Canada Law Book’s brand new Liquor and Host Liability Law in Canada. The first stand-alone title on this subject (possibly in Canada, and certainly in this library), it’s a great overview of the topic and may likely be of interest to many of you. You’ll find it in our Texts section soon.

Another exciting new addition is an Ontario Bar Association CLE binder on charity and not-for-profit law titled Doing Good, While Avoiding Legal and Liability Problems: A Primer for Lawyers on Advising and Sitting on Non-Profit Boards and Charities. A library client requested this title as an interlibrary loan some time back, and we’ve decided to bring this into our collection permanently. Not only are all of our materials on not-for-profit and charity law quite popular in the library, but as many of you in the community are involved with a wide variety of charities, this might be of personal interest to you if you weren’t able to attend the seminar when it was held in Toronto. It will also be located in the Texts area of our library once it has been fully processed.

In our family law section, we’re re-introducing an old looseleaf for which we suspended our subscription in 2006.  Based on library user feedback, we’ve updated our holdings for Enforcement of Family Law Orders and Agreements.  We hope to now update this title at least once a year.  As a note to our library users: if you find there is an invaluable looseleaf title in our collection that we have stopped updating, please speak to us!  We love to hear what our clients find useful, which areas we could use more resources for, and other suggestions for purchase.

Coming soon to our Reserve section are two new editions that we’re thrilled to have on our shelves. A very popular text on evidence, The Law of Evidence by David Paciocco and Lee Struesser, has recently been released in a revised 5th edition. While the original 5th edition was only published in 2008, decisions from the Supreme Court necessitated a complete re-write of the ninth chapter. Finally, possibly one of the most exciting additions of all, is the new edition of Trotter’s The Law of Bail in Canada. The 2nd edition of this title, published in 1999, continues to be frequently consulted in the library, so we’re pleased to shelve the 3rd edition – now in looseleaf form – in the Reserve area of the library.

Texts

The 2010 Annotated Employment Insurance Act (Carswell) Reference KF 3675 C36 Ei 2010
Supreme Court of Canada Practice 2011 (Carswell) Reference KF 8816 .ZA2 C72
Annual Review of Civil Litigation 2010 (Carswell) Reserve KF 8840 .ZA2 A557 2010
The 2011 Annotated Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (Carswell) Reference KF 1536 .ZA2 C36 Bi 2011
The 2011 Annotated Ontario Rules of Criminal Practice (Carswell) Reserve and Reference KF 9620 .ZB3 S43 
Ontario Environmental Legislation, 2010 – 2011 Edition (Canada Law Book) Texts KF 3775 .ZB3 O573 E
Liquor and Host Liability Law in Canada (Canada Law Book)  In Processing
Police Services Act of Ontario: An Annotated Guide (Canada Law Book) Reference KF 5399 O587 2009
The 2011 Annotated Copyright Act (Carswell) Reference KF 2994 C36 C 2011
Canadian Environmental Legislation, 2010 – 2011 Edition (Canada Law Book)  Texts KF 3775 .ZA2 C363 E
The Law of Evidence, Revised 5th Edition (Irwin Law) Reserve KF 8935 .ZA2 P32 2008b
The Law of Bail in Canada, 3rd Edition (Carswell) Reserve KF 9632 T76 2010
Enforcement of Family Law Orders and Agreements: Law and Practice (Carswell) Texts KF 537 W54 1989

Continuing Professional Development

Doing Good, While Avoiding Legal and Liability Problems: A Primer for Lawyers on Advising and Sitting on Non-Profit Boards and Charities (OBA)

10th Annual Civil Litigation for Law Clerks (LSUC)


Missing Books

Posted on by Amanda Elliott

I am currently halfway done our annual shelf reading of the CCLA’s library collection.  A shelf reading involves taking a printed list of everything that should be on our shelves, and actually checking each title, one by one, to see if it’s there. We do this annually to put the books in their proper order and to determine which books have gone missing during the past year.  While our collection is non-circulating, we still have many books that disappear and never find their way back home.  Many of these books are left around the courthouse or taken to a firm’s office.  It is very costly to replace books that have gone missing, when it cuts into our budget to purchase new books that could help expand our collection.  I have listed below some of our books that have gone missing recently from our collection:

  • The 2010 annotated Ontario Family Law Act (Carswell)
  • The law of contract in Canada (Carswell)
  • Annotated Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security Act (CCH Canadian)
  • High conflict people in legal disputes (Janis Publications)
  • New lawyer practice series : civil litigation (LSUC)
  • New lawyer practice series : family law : 2008 (LSUC)
  • Economic negligence : the recovery of pure economic loss (Carswell)
  • Best practices for commercial mortgage transactions (LSUC)
  • Special lectures 2002 : real property law : conquering the complexities (LSUC)
  • Probate essentials 2008 (LSUC)
  • Construction Lien Essentials (LSUC)
  • New developments in personal injury law 2009 (Middlesex Law Association)
  • Libel (Butterworths)
  • Corporate transactions for law clerks : the changing environment (LSUC)


If you come about any of these texts, or any other books belonging to the CCLA , we would appreciate it if they were returned to the library.  You can give them directly to a library staff member, or even just leave them on a book cart in the library.  Once I have completed my shelf read I will list a few more books that I have discovered to be missing, in hopes of seeing their return.

New Titles – October 2010

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

With October mailings came many a delivery of Law Society of Upper Canada “Continuing Professional Development” materials, the new name for what was formerly “Continuing Legal Education” or CLE.  The binders are always full of really interesting papers, so to be getting some new titles at the library is pretty exciting.  I’m personally pretty thrilled about the new binder from their “Annotated Document Series” entitled Annotated Business Agreements 2010.  We are often asked for just such precedents, so it’s nice to have a new resource to offer our clients.  As always, materials from every Law Society CPD session are sent to the CCLA library, usually within a month of the event.  Some of these materials are still being processed, so if the binder you’re looking for is not on the shelf yet, it will be soon!

New editions of annually updated titles are also continuing to arrive.  Certainly of excitement to a great number of our clients will be the new 2011 edition of the Ontario Annual Family Practice.  Our two copies of this title aren’t on the shelf for long each morning – I think they might be tied with the Martin’s Criminal Code for most frequently borrowed items!

Texts


Continuing Professional Development

  • Plaintiff’s Personal Injury Law 2010 (LSUC) – Text > KF 1257 .A5 L393 2010b
  • 9th annual Real Estate Law for Law Clerks (LSUC) – Texts > KF 670 .A2 L393 2010
  • Opening Your Law Practice 2010 (LSUC) – Texts > KF 318 .A2 L393 2010
  • Annotated Business Agreements 2010 (LSUC) – Texts > KF 889 .A2 L393 2010b
  • Practice Gems: Drafting and Administering Power of Attorney for Personal Care and Property (LSUC) – Text > KF 1347 .A75 L393 2010
  • Practice Gems: Probate Essentials 2010 (LSUC) – Texts > KF 765 .A75 L393 2010
  • The 12-Minute Civil Litigator 2010 (LSUC) – Texts > KF 8840 .ZB3 L393 2010
  • Employment Issues Arising on the Purchase and Sale of a Business 2010 (LSUC) – Texts > KF 3320 .ZB3 L393 2010
  • Criminal Law and the Charter 2010 (LSUC) Texts > KF 9620 .ZA2 L393 2010b
  • The 6-Minute Debtor-Creditor and Insolvency Lawyer 2010 (LSUC) – Texts > KF 1536 .ZB3 S592 2010
  • Corporate Law for Law Clerks 2010 (LSUC) – Texts > KF 1415 .ZB3 L393 2010b


CCLA Library Access

Posted on by ktribe

The CCLA recently began offering memberships to law students and paralegals, and this has created some confusion about what individuals may access the CCLA Library and its resources. We’ve outlined the details of library access below, and encourage members of the legal community to read it in order to clarify some of this confusion.

The CCLA Library is paid for via the membership dues of lawyers accredited by the Law Society of Upper Canada. As part of their Law Society membership, lawyers pay a library levy which is then allocated to libraries in regions across Ontario. The CCLA Library is also partially funded by the County of Carleton Law Association (CCLA) via its members. For these reasons, the library is meant only for the aforementioned individuals. The CCLA has recently opened memberships to law students and paralegals so that they can also access the library and its resources; however, they must purchase a CCLA membership in order to do so. The CCLA Library also allows those that are working directly under a lawyer, at the lawyer’s firm, to access the library on the lawyer’s behalf, which is why articling students have historically been permitted to access the library.

To reiterate, only lawyers accredited by the Law Society, CCLA Members, and individuals working under the above groups at their firm may access the CCLA Library’s services.

We hope this helps to clarify some confusion. Please note that CCLA Members also receive a number of other benefits offered by the CCLA, such as 24/7 library access, free Wi-Fi, discounts for CCLA Events, and exclusive services via businesses in the Ottawa community. If you are interested in becoming a CCLA Member, we encourage you to check out the Membership section of CCLA’s Website.

Want a Starbucks gift card? Take our survey!

Posted on by Jennifer Walker

By Jennifer Walker

The CCLA Library would like your feedback, and we’re not above giving away Starbucks gift cards to get it!

We’ve put together a very short survey for you to answer – just five questions about our library services. If you’d like a chance at winning one of two gift cards for Starbucks, just leave your name and contact information at the bottom of the survey. If you’d rather remain anonymous, we’d still love your feedback – you can just leave the contact information area empty. Unfortunately, you can’t win a gift card, but we might just have a chocolate treat for you as thanks if you stop by the library. The survey will be open until November 19, 2010. We’ll be letting the two lucky respondents know they’ve won on the following Monday!

With this survey, we’d like to hear more from Ottawa-area legal professionals about what they like about the library, which of our products and services they use, and any improvements we can make. With the results, we hope to better tailor our library service and collection for today’s legal community, and make the CCLA Library your first stop for legal research.

We thank you very much for taking the time to fill out this survey, and good luck!

To take the survey, please click here.