Speaker 1: Hey everyone, and welcome to a new video. For today's video, I wanted to talk about legal research. If you've been subscribed to me for a while, you know that I've previously filmed a video all about legal research and my tips and tricks on how to effectively do legal research. Today, I wanted to give you an update on that video and talk a little bit about the things that I learned about legal research in law school and how I've implemented them now in my articles. Some of the things that I'm really glad I learned and some of the things that I didn't really appreciate about legal research until I actually started my articles. Before I get into the video, I just wanted to thank LexisNexis Canada for partnering with me on this video. I use their products every single day, so I'm really happy that they wanted to work with me again. So the first thing I wanted to talk to you guys about is a couple of things that I learned in law school that I'm really happy I learned because I'm using them regularly. These two things are related. They are how to note up cases and how to note up legislation. I think the most important thing that I learned in law school about legal research was how to note up cases. Noting up cases is basically finding all of the cases that cite the case that you're looking at. This is really important for a couple of reasons. If you find a really helpful case, one that's really comparable to the one that you're working on, the best way to find more like it is to note up that case. You can do this in LexisAdvanced Quicklaw by hitting the quick cite button. This brings you to a page that shows the history of cases, and it also shows you all of the cases that have cited the one that you're looking at. Another reason that noting up cases is really helpful is to see if the law has been changed at all, or if the case you're looking at is still good law. I was doing some research just last week, and I found a case that was so helpful for the one that I was working on, and then I noted it up and figured out that it was actually overturned on appeal, and that's really important to know. Noting up cases is always going to be super important. And it's a really great thing to learn in law school if you don't know how to do it already. Another reason I really like the quick cite function in LexisAdvanced Quicklaw is that it shows you the history of cases as well. So lately, I've been doing a lot of sentencing research, and a lot of sentencing decisions don't give you all of the facts that were found by the judge in the actual decision of the case. So I'm often having to go find that judgment to see what the facts are to determine if it's actually comparable to the one I'm working on. This is really easy to do in LexisAdvanced Quicklaw because when you hit the quick cite button, the first thing that it shows is history of the case. So it will give you any other times this case has been in court before. So for example, finding the actual decision of the case if you're looking at the sentencing decision. The second thing that I mentioned that I'm really happy I learned in law school is how to note up legislation. This is really great for me as an articling student because there are a lot of areas of the law, most of them, that I'm not very familiar with. So I'm working in criminal law right now, and I recently had an over 80 case, which is kind of like an impaired driving case, and I'm not super familiar with that area of the law. So a great thing for me to be able to do was to note up the legislation. I was able to find the section that my client was charged under in the criminal code, and then I was able to note up that particular section to see what cases are kind of the seminal cases in that area, and what cases are recent in that area. And that makes it really easy to do research on an area that you don't know a lot about. One thing that I really wish I had paid more attention to in law school, or spent a little bit more time on, was how to determine when a particular section of a statute actually came into force. Often, sections of an act are amended or they're repealed, and you need to know when a particular section actually came into force. I was asked to do this the other day for a piece of Saskatchewan legislation, and I didn't know how. So in law school, I learned how to do this with Ontario and Canadian legislation, but it's not something that comes up a lot, so I couldn't remember how to do it. I went back through my notes, and I was able to find the PowerPoint slides, and I probably could have figured it out if it was a piece of Ontario legislation, but it was Saskatchewan. And I can understand why we didn't learn it in law school. You can't go over every single province and exactly how to do it in every province, but I think it would have been helpful if I had spent a little bit of time trying to figure out how to do that, because it's something that I didn't really think would ever come up, and then it did, and maybe it's something that will never come up again, who knows? But I do think that it's important to know how to figure out when a particular section of a statute actually came into force. So if that's something you're learning about in law school, or if you haven't learned it yet, maybe pay attention to that, or maybe ask your professor if they haven't taught it yet, because it might come in handy. Now I want to talk about a couple of things that I had actually forgotten that I learned in law school that I've recently started implementing. The first one is taking note of every step in your research. When you're doing research, I was taught in law school to actually take note of everything that you're doing. So to write down the search terms that you used, what results you got, and then when you get a case, is it relevant and is it not relevant, and why did you decide either way? And making sure you really have comprehensive notes on all of that. Now I haven't really been doing that because it does take a lot of time. It really just makes your research more comprehensive. You're able to say, I decided that this case was not helpful for this reason. And you might be wrong, you know, maybe you miss a case that was really important that you thought wasn't, but at least you have a justification for the decision that you made, as opposed to saying, well I don't remember seeing that case, or I don't know why I thought it was not relevant. I don't know that it's something that I would do for every single assignment, but if I'm researching something in particular and there's tons and tons of cases, it might be useful. It just makes your research more comprehensive, and I think it's something I might try and do a little bit more of. Another thing that I learned in law school that I kind of forgot about is reading the head notes of cases. So the head note is actually not part of the case itself, but it shows up before the decision of a case, and it's basically a brief synopsis of what the case is about, what the facts are, and what the issues are. Now again, it's very brief, it's probably like one paragraph, but it's a great way to just see what the case is about. It provides some context so that when you actually read the case, you already know what was decided, you already know what the issues are to some extent, and it just allows you to give the case a better read, and to actually make it a more focused read, as opposed to going in it having no idea what it's even about. It also allows you to research more efficiently because you don't have to read an entire case, and then find out that it's irrelevant. You can just read the head note, and you might find that it's totally unrelated to what you're looking for, and then you can move on. Now, reading the head note is not a substitute for actually reading the case. You can't like sparks note it like you might have done in like high school, but it does give you the opportunity to rule out cases that are totally unrelated to what you're looking for, and they're completely irrelevant. So rather than reading the whole thing and then figuring that out, you're able to read the head note and decide quite quickly that it's not going to be necessary for you to read that case. Now, the last thing I wanted to talk about is just a couple of things that I hadn't really appreciated about legal research until I started working. So the first thing I didn't really appreciate, and this is only based off of my own experience, but my opinion is that law school tends to understate the use of trial-level decisions and decisions from other jurisdictions. This might be more applicable to me because I'm working in criminal law, and I'm working at the trial level, and maybe different areas of the law are different, but I do think that there is some value sometimes in using those trial-level decisions or using cases from other jurisdictions. Now, when I say other jurisdictions, I'm talking other provinces in Canada. I'm not talking other countries. But I do think there's some value in those. I think, of course, you always want to start your research looking in your own jurisdiction. So when I start a new research project, I'm always narrowing my search results to Ontario, and I'm looking for the highest-level court possible. But sometimes you just can't find a case that's comparable in fact to the one you're researching for. So you might want to try lower-level court decisions or a different jurisdiction if you're just not finding what you're looking for. I was recently doing sentencing research for a particular case, and the most persuasive authority that we could find was actually a BC Court of Appeal case. Don't forget that you can try lower-level court decisions, and you can look to other provinces because maybe they have a case that's really close in fact to the one that you're searching for. So don't rule those out as avenues for finding cases that could be useful to you in your research. The other thing that I didn't really appreciate when I was in law school was the need to stay up-to-date with the law. Now, of course, when you're in law school, you know that the law is constantly evolving. It's why you always have to buy new textbooks every year. But I don't think I really appreciated how much effort it takes to actually stay up-to-date with the law. Of course, for me as an articling student, I find it more difficult because to me, I'm just trying to figure out how the law works and what the law looks like in different areas. So also having to go and look for updates is just, it feels like it's so much work to do. But it's so necessary to make sure that you're up-to-date with what's happening in your area of practice. Now, I still haven't figured out the best way to do this, honestly. I've started following some accounts on Twitter and some bloggers to just see what kinds of issues are coming up in the news, what things people are talking about, and what their perspectives are. And I've also started following some lawyers on Twitter just to see what people are talking about. I think that that's a really great way to engage with the law and to stay current. Something that was recommended to me, though, was to subscribe to Alan Gold's Netletter. Now, this is a criminal law netletter that you can find on Lexis Advance Quicklaw. This is basically a newsletter that allows you to stay current on what's happening in the law. And this one is criminal law in particular. But there are tons. On Lexis Advance Quicklaw, I think they have over 100 different netletters in a bunch of different practice areas. So you don't have to just work in criminal law to find these netletters useful. But they are a great way to stay up-to-date with what's happening. So all you have to do is subscribe to them, and then you can have it delivered to your inbox weekly if you want, or when there's some updates. When you're practicing in law and when you're articling, you're just so busy. It feels like you don't have time to go out looking for all these updates. So netletters are just a great way to stay up-to-date with the law and with the issues in your area of practice without having to put in a lot of effort. And I would also recommend, you know, following some bloggers or following some people on Twitter just to keep up-to-date with what's happening. The law is constantly evolving, and you don't want to get behind. So that is everything for this video. Thank you again to LexisNexis Canada for partnering with me on this video. I hope this was helpful for you guys. I hope it gives you a sense of how I'm actually using what I learned about legal research from law school in my practice every day. Don't forget to like this video and subscribe and turn on the notification bell so you never miss a future video. And I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye.