Category Archives: Canada

Canadian Legal Apps

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Posted in Android, Apps, Canada, Canada Law Book, CanLII, Case Law, HeinOnline, iPad, Irwin Law, Law Journals, LexisNexis, Mobile, Social Science Research Network, U.S., Westlaw and tagged , , , , , , , ,

Canada-specific legal apps are still quite thin on the ground, although the publishers are now more active in releasing updates.  This is still primarily for iPad users.  Here’s a rundown:

  • Case Law.  First to market was LexisNexis Quicklaw (iOS) and that’s pretty much all there is.  No Westlaw Canada app, nor one from CanLII.  Garry Wise has created an iOS app called WiseLII that will search CanLII.  The Law Society of Upper Canada and LexisNexis have an Ontario Reports app which gives access to back issues as well as a handful of cases each week (iOS or Android).
  • E-books.  Thomson Reuters Carswell is delivering e-books through its Thomson Reuters Proview tool (iOS or Android).  LexisNexis sells its books for any e-book reader (iOS, Blackberry, Android).  Kindle isn’t listed but you might try using Calibre to convert the LexisNexis epub format to a mobi file, which is Kindle friendly.  Irwin Law has an online e-book library (Web-based) but you can also download a free app (iOS) for any books you own.
  • Law Journals.  If you aren’t getting your law journals as PDFs (like the free content on SSRN’s Legal Scholarship Network), you can try the HeinOnline app for everything else (iOS).  Law Society members in Ontario and British Columbia have free access through their dues (Canada), as do lawyers in a variety of U.S. jurisdictions through their local law library or bar (Social Law, Jenkins, Hamilton County (OH), NY City Bar, etc.).

There are a variety of e-books, law-related podcasts, and magazines available from the iTunes store.  Other publishers, like Emond Montgomery, also have e-books (iOS or Kobo).

All of which assumes you need an app.  If you are on a tablet, you can probably just surf to the site to do your research.  Sites like CanLII in particular are sufficiently simple in design that they work fine on Safari on the iPad or Firefox on an Android tablet. Irwin’s Canadian Online Legal Dictionary, a free Web site, is also tablet accessible – I wouldn’t say friendly, since the navigation requires a smaller finger or a stylus – as a Web site.

[Disclaimers:  my employer is one of the major funders of CanLII, since Ontario's lawyer dues are used, in part, to pay for the free resource.  The book that started this blog is a Thomson Reuters Canada Law Book product.  But you already knew that!]

Get Law Journals with HeinOnline 2012 Mobile

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Posted in Apps, Canada, HeinOnline, iPad, iPhone, Law Journals, U.S. and tagged ,

HeinOnline has released an updated mobile app for iPhone and iPad users who access their fee-based law journal and legal commentary databases.  Many law libraries are providing access to HeinOnline for free if you’re in their space.  The Massachusetts trial libraries have a great post on how to set up to use their subscription.  If you’ve got your own access or remote access through your library – like members of the Law Society of Upper Canada or the Social Law Library or lawyers in British Columbia – you can use the app to login remotely for access to journals from your tablet or phone as well as from your PC.

HeinOnline 2012 Mobile iPhone and iPad app screenshot

What If You Can’t Find a Free Version of Your Case?

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Posted in Australia, Canada, CanLII, Case Law, LexisNexis, Search, U.K., U.S. and tagged , ,

Sites like this one often extol the virtues of the many free case law sites on the Web.  But the reality is that the free case law sites are just like their paid peers and no site has a comprehensive collection of every opinion.  Whether they are omitted because of age, failure of the courts to make them available, or editorial decision, not all opinions make it into legal research databases.

What do you do if you can’t find it?  The first thing is to make sure you have simplified your research as much as possible.  If you are using a free site like CanLII or LexisNexis’s free case law, review your search query.  Law librarians can probably all remember a time when a lawyer asked for a case and the party name was incorrectly spelled, or it was in the wrong court.

Before you bail out on the free sites, confirm party names or use just one part of the name (“Dominion”) rather than the entire name (“Dominion Coffee Beans, LTD”).  Just because there is a corporate name doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been abbreviated in some way.  A quick search on CanLII for Dominion Bridge returned 21 cases.  But if you search for Dom’n you get 2 additional cases that do not appear in the original 21.

Some cases de-identify cases, so Smith v. Smith becomes S. v. S.  Your case may be there but just not using the term you are looking for.  The same thing goes for legislation.  Statutes and regulations may have popular names that do not actually appear in the language of the law, and so a search using those will fail.  For example, the USA PATRIOT Act is often called the Patriot Act in Canada, but USA is part of the acronym, not a country identifier.  Focus on the content of the law and see if you can find it by using specific keywords rather than popular names.

The same goes for specific key words in cases and legislation.  If you find that you are searching for a phrase and not getting results, try starting with a single word or two.  Then slowly expand your query to fine tune your results.  This is particularly true when you are using a legal term of art, like “time is of the essence”.  There are good chances that the phrase are used just as expected, but opinions are written by individuals and they may not always use the term in the same way.

One of my favorite examples is marijuana, also known as mary jane, or spelled as marihuana.  If you are looking for cases based on a word that might have multiple spellings, see if your search site allows for wildcards to replace part of the word.  For example, if you search on CanLII for mari*uana, with an asterisk replacing the j or h, you will retrieve cases with both spellings.

If you still can’t find the case, call a law librarian and see if they can help you.  Many Canadian provinces and U.S. states have law libraries that serve the local or provincial bars.  Academic law libraries take calls from alumni.  See if someone can confirm that the case isn’t available for free, and perhaps direct you to an alternative site with the case or provide the case to you directly.

Research Add-ons Chart for Lawyers Using IE, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari

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Posted in Add-on, Business Information, Canada, Case Law, Evernote, Firefox, Google, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Search, U.K., U.S. and tagged , ,

This page was inspired by a recent conference presentation I saw that focused, like much of this blog, on extensions and tweaks for Mozilla’s Firefox or Google’s Chrome Web browsers.  The legal profession is predominantly using the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, however, probably at even greater levels than the general population.  It is sometimes hard to determine what add-ons or extensions work for Microsoft Internet Explorer, because there is no comprehensive central marketplace for available resources.

Here is a chart with a list of free extensions that can help your online research and the browsers for which they are available.  It’s not comprehensive, but it has a number of resources that are available to 3 or more browsers.

I have made a selection for each category and browser but there may be other options.  Keep in mind that the add-on may be for a particular version of the Web browser or require a particular operating system, so they may not install for the version you are running.  You can also go directly to sites like IEAddons.com for Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Add On site, Google’s Web Store (or the old extension site), Safari Addons, and the Userscripts.org site to find tweaks for all major Web browsers.

Feel free to add your own favorite research-related extensions or add-ons in the comments!

  1. Click the icon that matches YOUR browser to go directly to an available extension.  If the icon is grayed out, then I didn’t provide a link.
  2. Hold your mouse pointer over the icon before you click it.  I have added a tool tip for each icon to try to help you before you click away.
Access Internet Explorer-designed Sites without Internet Explorer IE Tab 2 Add-on for Mozilla Firefox IE Tab Add-on for Google Chrome Not available for Safari
Block Ads IE Adblocker Adblock Plus Add on for Firefox Adblock Add-on for Chrome AdBlock for Safari
Bookmark Synchronization XMarks Add-on for Internet Explorer Bookmark synchronization is built in to Firefox browser Bookmark synchronization built in to Chrome Web browser XMarks Add-on for Safari
Case Law Citation Locator UK ONLY: Justis J-Link Add-on for Internet Explorer US ONLY: Jureeka Add-on for Mozilla Firefox Not available for Google Chrome Not available for Safari
Citation Management with Zotero (free) Not available for Internet Explorer Zotero Citation Management Add-on for Mozilla Firefox Zotero Alpha Add-on for Google Chrome Zotero Alpha Add-on for Safari
Diigo Web Highlighter and Research Manager [FLI post on Diigo] Diigo Research Manager Toolbar for Internet Explorer Diigo Research Manager Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox Diigo Research Manager Add-on for Google Chrome Not available for Safari
Evernote Web Clipper [FLI post on Evernote]

Evernote Add-on installed with Evernote for Windows

Evernote Add on for Firefox

 Evernote Add-on for Chrome Add-on for Safari installs with Evernote for Mac
Google Search Result Term Jumping / Highlighting Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer supports term highlighting and jumping Search WP Add-on for Mozilla Firefox Word Highlight Add-on for Google Chrome Not available for Safari
Google Scholar Star Pagination for Cases [FLI post on pagination] Not available for Internet Explorer Not available for Firefox Google Scholar Star Pagination Add-on for Google Chrome Not available for Safari
Greplin Personal Cloud Search [FLI post on Greplin] Not available for Internet Explorer Not available for Firefox Greplin Add-on for Chrome Not available for Safari
Instapaper Deferred Reading Instapaper Bookmarklet defers reading for Internet Explorer Instapaper Bookmarklet defers reading for Mozilla Firefox Instapaper Bookmarklet defers reading for Google Chrome Instapaper Bookmarklet defers reading for Mac
Readability Not available for Internet Explorer Arc90 Readability Add on for Mozilla Firefox Arc90 Readability Add-on for Chrome Not available for Safari
Surf Canyon Personalized Search Results Surf Canyon Personalized Search Results for Internet Explorer Surf Canyon Personalized Search Results for Mozilla Firefox Surf Canyon Personalized Search Results Add-on for Google Chrome Not available for Safari

Tip: Searching for Counsel in Case Law Databases

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Posted in Canada, Case Law, LexisNexis, Screencast, Search, U.S., Westlaw and tagged , , ,

The proprietary legal research databases LexisNexis and Westlaw have structured their case law content so that you can easily dig into select parts of a court’s opinion.  One frequently sought piece of information is to find in which cases your opposing counsel has appeared.  This is a straightforward search, focusing on the counsel segment or field (more on LexisNexis segments, and Westlaw segments).

But what if you are searching other case law sites, particularly the free Legal Information Institutes?  Sometimes the data is not as well structured, so you can’t search just on the counsel or judges segment of the opinions.  Here’s a quick overview on searching using the counsel segment on LexisOne, and then how to craft a text search on CanLII to accomplish nearly the same result.

LexisNexis Canada Adds Quicklaw iPhone App

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Posted in Apps, Canada, Case Law, iPhone, LexisNexis and tagged

Update:  The following review was done using an iPod Touch 2G.  LexisNexis Canada has confirmed that it was designed for Apple 3G and 4G products, which explains some of the results outlined below.

Legal publishers continue to lag in getting mobile apps to their users.  Fastcase.com was first out the door over a year ago with an iPhone app which has garnered a lot of praise from users.  WestlawNext has an iPad app but otherwise the Thomson Reuters approach seems to be mobile Web sites, rather than apps, although their presentation of mobile offerings doesn’t appear to actually show all of their options.  Apparently, you can still rock it old school with Westlaw’s Palm OS clipping tool!  Blackberry and Android users are still relying on mobile Web sites.

This is the environment into which LexisNexis Canada releases its brand new iPhone app for its legal research service Quicklaw.  It follows the lead of the US LexisNexis app, which offers case name and citation look up. I was able to log in with my personalized LexisNexis profile as well as with a typical LexisNexis username and password.

As an app goes, it is pretty straight forward.  You can either select to search by a case name or search by a citation.  When you type in your search, it retrieves a document.  Wait, did I say A?  That was the odd thing.  I tried a couple of searches based on a single party name (try Strother, for example) and retrieved one document.  The case was formatted cleanly but I know that there are more results.  In fact, when I received an error message that the document I requested was too large and I should retry my search on Quicklaw, I did retry the search at the full Web site.  I retrieved 30+ hits using the same search-by-name form.

Once you have retrieved a document, you can share it (e-mail, etc.) or you can run it through LexisNexis’ citator, Quickcite.  The screen automatically rotates to landscape mode and the results are displayed in a clean version of the full Quickcite screen.

LexisNexis Canada Quicklaw iPhone App Quickcite Results

LexisNexis Canada Quicklaw iPhone App Quickcite Results

And that’s it.  It is a very basic app and, based on the single document retrieval, not a very useful one.  The citation search may be more useful if you are pulling up a case and you know the cite, but I don’t see any value in the case name search.

It also seems to have time out issues.  I was testing the app on an iPod Touch with a WiFi connection and expected it to come along pretty quickly.  But I had a half dozen error messages, most of which seemed to be time out errors rather than the reasons included in the error (document too big, etc.).  If I reran the search, I often was able to get the final result.

LexisNexis Canada Qucklaw iPhone App Error Message

LexisNexis Canada Qucklaw iPhone App Error Message

Mobile Lawyers Accessmylibrary for Free Business Research

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Posted in Android, Business Information, Canada, Cengage Gale, iPad, Mobile, News, U.S. and tagged , , ,

Libraries appear to be fighting (losing) battles over funding, prestige, perceptions of usefulness around the globe.  One of the things that many North American public library systems and consortia have been doing is licensing electronic databases for your use.  They skew heavily towards primary and secondary school users and that type of research.  But there are business information databases and directories that can be helpful to any legal researcher.  Greg Lambert and Ann Lee Gibson mention these databases in a recent American Bar Association Law Practice magazine piece.

Information Today reports that Cengage Learning’s Gale Group has released an app for iPad and Android devices that makes using their Accessmylibrary resource easier than ever and takes you into fee-based resources normally only accessible from your library’s site.  You can access some information by going to Accessmylibrary.com and entering information about your local public library.

The apps use geolocation to determine which library’s resources are available to you, looking in a 10 mile radius.  Open up the app while you are on the move and you’ll see that the library – and subscribed databases – has changed.  It’s great marketing for the libraries, except that you never have to enter one to get access to this information.

Unlike my local public library, where I have to enter my library card number, the app does not require any additional authentication.  In at least one of the libraries that I can see during the day, I can get access to databases like Legaltrac, the National Newspaper Index, and the CPI.Q Canadian Periodicals database.

Grab the app and keep it in mind when you’re looking for a quick answer or secondary information relating to your legal issue.  Open it up on your commute and see if you have resources available that are different from your local library.  It’s a great resource for information that might not be found in your typical legal research subscription.