Legal Research Manual

This checklist is to help you consider all the different types of information that might be helpful for legal research. You won't necessarily need to use every type of information listed here, but the checklist helps you consider methodically if a particular type of information would be relevant to your research question.

• What words or phrases are key to this area of law?
• What other ways can the same concept be expressed (synonyms)?
• As you work through this checklist, you will probably refine and add to this list.

• Books, Continuing Legal Education Materials, Looseleafs

  • Check Omni to find books on your subject.   

• Legal Encyclopedias

  • The two major legal encyclopedias in Canada are the Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (also available in individual law students' Westlaw Edge Canada accounts) and Halsbury's Laws of Canada  in Lexis Advance Quicklaw Plus (also available in law students' Lexis+ accounts)

• Journal Articles

  • Consider searching the Index to Canadian Legal Literature, Legaltrac, the Index to Legal Periodicals, the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals, or specialized databases in your legal area (check out our Guide to Legal Databases by Subject or Jurisdiction).

• Non-Legal Materials

  • Check out specialized and non-legal resources as needed for your subject. 
  • Consider newspapers, government information, business information, social sciences information, etc.
  • To find research guides for all areas, check out our Research by Subject page.

• Statutes

  • Check statutes from all relevant jurisdictions.  You can use our Canadian Legislation page to locate reliable open access sources.  You can also use the campus-wide Westlaw Canada or Lexis Advance Quicklaw (and law students can use their individual Westlaw Edge Canada and Lexis+ accounts). 
  • Do you need to look at historical statutes? Our Canadian Legislation page will show you what's available online, and we have full runs of historical statutes in print in the law library.
     

• Regulations

  • Don't forget that regulations are also law. You can use our Canadian Legislation page to locate reliable sources. 
  • Do you need to look at historical regulations? We have a Regulations chapter in our Legal Research Manual that will guide you in locating them.
     

• Note up Statutes and Regulations

  • Note up statutes and regulations to see how courts have interpreted and applied them.  You can use Westlaw Canada or Lexis Advance Quicklaw for this (and law students can also use their individual Westlaw Edge Canada and Lexis+ accounts) .

• Cases and Case Law Digests

  • Before beginning a full-text search, save time and increase precision by using the Canadian Abridgment ( available on Westlaw Edge) or the Canada Digest (on Lexis Advance Quicklaw) to find summaries of cases by topic.
  • For full-text case law searches, have you considered all the ways your topic might be expressed by different judges at different times?  Look again at your keywords to make sure you have all the relevant synonyms.
  • For full-text case law searches, if you have a broad topic or are retrieving too many cases, consider what subset of cases you need to search.  Can you narrow it by jurisdiction? By timeframe?  By court level?
     

• Words and Phrases

  • Are there any words or phrases that are ambiguous or may have a specialized legal meaning?
  • To find out how a phrase or word has been defined in a legal context, consult tools like Words and Phrases Judicially Defined in Canadian Courts and Tribunals (available in Westlaw Edge), Canadian Legal Words & Phrases on Lexis+ or Sanagan's Encyclopedia of Words and Phrases (in print).
     

• Note up Cases

  • Make sure you know both the judicial history and subsequent legal treatment of cases you are relying on.
  • Tools for noting up include Westlaw Edge Canada and Lexis+.