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Research Guide for Beginners This guide explains how to conduct legal research in Canada. It is aimed at the first-time legal researcher and will be most useful if the steps and sources in the guide are followed in the order given. The guide is no substitute for legal advice. If you have a serious legal problem, consult a lawyer . The Bora Laskin Law Library also publishes a separate Guide to Finding Legal Help in Ontario , which includes sources of free or inexpensive legal advice in the Greater Toronto Area for those who qualify. What answer do you want your research to provide? If you need to conduct legal research, this usually means you are looking for law-related information - often legislation or court cases - to solve some legal problem. Try to state the question for your particular problem. This will help narrow your research. Determine the jurisdiction by identifying the subject and locality involved. Before beginning legal research, it helps to first determine if there is a particular court or government agency that can resolve the conflict. Understand citations and abbreviations . Court cases and statutes are cited in a fairly unique way. Most law books are cited by volume number, title and page. A typical citation for a court case might look something like this: Hong Kong v. Sun (1996), 109 C.C.C. (3d) 383 (Ont. C.A.). This citation tells you that the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal (Ont. C.A.) in the case involving Hong Kong and Sun can be found in volume 109 of the 3rd series of the Canadian Criminal Cases (C.C.C.) at page 383. Statutes are often cited by name, year and chapter number. For example, in the Change of Name Act , R.S.O. 1990, c. C. 7, refers to that Act being chapter C. 7 of the 1990 Revised Statutes of Ontario . Most law libraries have the following reference books that help explain legal citations and abbreviations : The Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (5th ed.) (also called "the McGill Guide"), Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations (5th ed.), and Raistrick's Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations (2nd ed.). The following libraries have law-related resources and are open to the public: Bora Laskin Law Library York University Law Library Toronto Reference Library Many branches of the Toronto Public Library also carry some basic legal resources - check the blue pages of the phone book under City of Toronto Government listings for the branch nearest you. For research on municipal issues and city by-laws, visit the Urban Affairs Library at 55 John Street in downtown Toronto. There are also many "virtual" sources of law-related information on the Internet. Check out the links on any of the following three sites: Self-help books written by lawyers, and aimed at members of the public, provide practical information about legal topics. In Canada, Self-Counsel Press has published books with such titles as Fight that Ticket in Ontario and Small Claims Court Guide for Ontario: What You Really Need to Know . Many of their books can be found in the Toronto Public Library or can be purchased at major bookstores for around $15 or less. Other topics covered by Self-Counsel Press include divorce and separation, wills and estates, landlord and tenant, starting your own business, and buying and selling a home.
Legal Line: Legal Information Ontario provides free general information on Federal and Ontario laws for 870 topics in 28 different areas of law. Legal treatises are textbooks written by lawyers for lawyers. Do a keyword search using a law library catalogue to identify titles of treatises on your topic. If you find a title on point, check the table of contents or index of the book to see if there is any discussion of your legal problem. Many law-related treatises are in looseleaf format, which means they updated regularly. Legal encyclopedias provide a good overview of legal issues and also refer to relevant cases or legislation. The Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (abbreviated C.E.D.) is a multi-volume encyclopedia divided into "Titles" by topic. In Ontario, use the green Ontario edition in print (at Row 19 on the library's main floor). Consult the Index to find out which volume discusses your topic. Refer to that volume and scan the table of contents, or go directly to the paragraph that was listed in the Index. The C.E.D.'s are kept current by yellow supplemental pages. Legal dictionaries such as the Canadian Legal Dictionary or Carswell's Words and Phrases (part of the Canadian Abridgment ) define legal words, often by referring to relevant legislation or case law. Other dictionaries, such as Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations (5th ed.) and Raistrick's Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations (2nd ed.) explain abbreviations or acronyms that you may come across when you conduct legal research. Articles in law journals or bar reviews may contain practical information on a variety of legal topics. Look for your topic using print or computer journal indexes such as the Index to Canadian Legal Literature or the Index to Canadian Legal Periodical Literature . Legislation includes statutes passed by federal or provincial lawmakers. For federal legislation, search the English Index to the Revised Statutes of Canada (1985). For Ontario legislation, search the Index to the Revised Statutes of Ontario (1990). Check our chart of links to access web versions of Canadian Legislation. To ensure the legislation has not been amended or repealed, use the Canada Statute Citator in print for federal legislation and the Ontario Statute Citator for Ontario legislation checking under the title and applicable section numbers of your statute. Most statutes also provide for regulations to be enacted by the appropriate Ministry, or by other government officials. You should check to determine whether there are any regulations that affect your legal problem. Case reporters are books containing the decisions of courts and administrative bodies. These decisions explain the law and can be used as precedents in legal cases. One of the easiest ways to find cases on a particular legal issue is to use the Canadian Abridgment , a multi-volume set organized by topic (at Row 19 on the library's main floor. Use the General Index to find the volume that most likely discusses your issue. Then browse the relevant topics in that volume to find cases on point. More recent cases on the same topic can be found in paperback supplements accompanying the main volume. If you find case digests in the Canadian Abridgment that seem relevant, you should then ordinarily find the full-text decision of the court by using the citation given at the end of the digest. At the front of each volume of the Canadian Abridgment is a Table of Abbreviations which explains the abbreviations used in the publication. Once you have found a relevant case, it is important to check the applicable main and supplemental volumes of the Canadian Case Citations to ensure that the case is still good law (i.e., that the case has not been reversed on appeal or criticized by subsequent court decisions). The Canadian Case Citations is organized alphabetically by case name. A key to the symbols that indicate how a case has been treated in subsequent decisions can be found at the bottom of each page. Court rules govern procedure in lawsuits. There are several publications that explain these court rules and discuss how the rules have been interpreted by the courts:
Each court usually requires documents to be in a particular form. These forms can be found in the foregoing publications. Alternatively, call the relevant courthouse registry staff or visit the Ontario Court website at or the Federal Court website. Forms and precedents or sample agreements can be found in such publications as O'Brien's Encyclopedia of Forms (at Row 2 on the library's main floor). In addition, many of the self-help books published by Self-Counsel Press (discussed above) contain sample forms and precedents. Since laws constantly change and court cases may be reversed on appeal, it is essential that you "update" your legal research to ensure your research is accurate. To update legislation, use the Canada Statute Citator for federal statutes or the Ontario Statute Citator for Ontario statutes. You should also ordinarily check to make sure there are no pending bills that would affect the statute in question by consulting the Weekly Bulletin Service pages found in the front of Volume 1 of the Canada Statute Citator or the Ontario Statute Citator . Alternatively, visit the legislative website of the federal or Ontario government to check for new bills; links to these websites can be found our Canadian Legislation page. To update case law, use the Canadian Case Citations by looking up your case alphabetically, as discussed above. You will often know it is time to stop your research when you keep coming across references to the same cases or legislation. This is a good indication that you have identified the relevant legal material for your particular problem. What you do with your legal research will depend on the type of legal problem you have. If you are arguing your own case in court, you will need to provide copies of your cases or statutory material to the court and to the other parties. In all situations where there may be serious consequences due to your legal problem, you should consult a lawyer or seek legal help from a number of available sources. Refer to our guide called Guide to Finding Legal Help in Ontario for more information on this topic. As mentioned above, a lawyer may be needed for you to resolve your legal problem. The Bora Laskin Law Library Guide to Finding Legal Help in Ontario includes listings for a variety of sources of legal help, including free legal help for those who qualify. Included in this directory is information on: (i) the lawyer referral service provided by the Law Society of Upper Canada, (ii) Legal Aid, (iii) community legal clinics, including clinics operated by students from the University of Toronto Law School, and (iv) shelters and crisis centers. A law librarian may be able to help. At the Bora Laskin Law Library, our librarians can answer your questions and offer limited assistance with your research during our public reference hours, being Monday to Friday, 10 to 4. For problems involving reference assistance taking longer than ten minutes, we offer continued research assistance for a fee. Law librarians cannot provide legal advice. Legal research guides are also available to help you with your legal research. Consult one of the following textbooks available at our library:
This guide was prepared by the Bora Laskin Law Library at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, 78 Queens Park, Ontario M5S 2C5, Tel: (416) 978-1073, Fax: (416) 978-8349. The guide was adapted with permission from the American Association of Law Libraries, which publishes a guide for U.S. legal research called How to Research a Legal Problem: A Guide for Non-Lawyers .
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