Canadian Legal Research Manual

Like all secondary sources, in-depth secondary sources explain the law and point you towards primary sources of law. These sources are more detailed and specific than an introductory source you may have found during the Exploratory Research Stage. 

Typical source types for this Stage are journal articles and books, as well as non-traditional secondary sources like blogs, continuing legal education materials, and grey literature.

These sources are often necessary for legal research—particularly if you are studying a niche or emerging area of law, or if you are looking for critiques or new interpretations of the law.

In this Stage:

1. Locate Sources
2. Critically Assess Your Sources
3. Consider Your Next Step

Finding relevant in-depth secondary sources requires you to pay attention to different points of access. Many are not possible to find through a simple Google search, but require you to look at specialized databases and finding tools.

Take a moment to reflect on what types of secondary sources are likely to have information on this topic.

• Is your topic likely to be discussed in traditional scholarly sources (e.g. journal articles, treatises) or non-traditional sources (e.g. legal blogs, social media)?
• Is your topic an emerging area of the law? Is it established enough to appear in academic and practitioner works like books or journal articles that can take 1-3 years to publish? Or is it newer and may only appear in non-traditional secondary sources (e.g. blogs, reports)?
• What type of information are you looking for? For example, in-depth analysis and critique (journal articles, academic books), general commentary (legal blogs, reports), information about a specific case (case comments, journal articles), or information about other sectors (grey literature, non-legal journals).

Once you have an idea of what you are looking for, you can begin your search.

► See Textbooks, Treatises, and More for more information on how to locate scholarly books and treatises.

► See Journal Literature for more information on how to find law journal articles.

► See Non-Traditional Secondary Sources for more information on how to locate resources like blogs and continuing legal education materials.

Once you've found a relevant secondary source, don't forget to critically assess its utility for your research. Two main considerations are:

• How current is the source? Some secondary sources are very recent, while others may be months or years out of date. If you need to know what the law is now, note the date of your secondary sources to ensure you conduct subsequent research to fill in that gap.
• Is it the correct jurisdiction? Always double check that your sources cover the jurisdiction you are researching—especially if you have found them through Google or other non-Canadian access points.

Additional considerations include authority (how authoritative is the source?) and bias (does the source favour one perspective over another?). 

►See "Critically Assessing Non-traditional Secondary Sources" in Christa Bracci & Erica Friesen, Legal Research Online (eCampus Ontario Open Library, 2024) for more information on how to assess the limitations of a secondary source.

Just as you did with your introductory sources, you can use in-depth secondary sources for citation tracing. The experts who write these resources have already identified the leading case law and applicable legislation for you—all you have to do is follow those citations:

• If you found citations to relevant legislation, proceed to the researching legislation stage.
• If you found relevant case law, proceed to the case law research stage.