Recommended Secondary Resources: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:09, 3 September 2015

This page from JP Boyd on Family Law—and other pages from this Wikibook that discuss BC family law litigation topics—are under editorial review to provide more thorough, current, and practical guidance. Since 2020, procedures, forms, and laws have changed significantly. While gross inaccuracies have been corrected, some details may still be outdated. These pages were not included in the 2024 print edition, and have been highlighted in orange where they appear in the navigation menu on this website.

Clicklaw website

Clicklaw website is BC’s primary resource for legal information. It links to a large collection of legal information resources for the public. See the handout Clicklaw: 5 ways to search, and Using the Clicklaw HelpMap.

Clicklaw also includes Clicklaw wikibooks, which are a series of 20 legal guides that are fully searchable, and can be downloaded in print or ePub formats. A good place to start is with the wikibook, Legal Help for British Columbians, which provides first steps for over 40 common legal problems.

Legal Dictionaries and Glossaries

Multilingual Legal Glossary. Lists 5000 Canadian legal and court-related terms in English plain language, and their equivalents in eight other languages (Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Farsi, Korean, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese).
BC Supreme Court Terms. Provides brief definitions of commonly used legal terms to assist self-represented litigants with civil, non-family claims in the Supreme Court of BC.
JP Boyd on Family law - Terminology. Offers JP Boyd’s plain-language definitions of common legal words and phrases in family law.
BC Laws Glossary. Found in the Statutes and Regulations on bclaws.ca, this glossary offers further explanation of terms used in the legislation.
Irwin Law’s Canadian Online Legal Dictionary. A dictionary of terms defined in the glossaries of Canadian law books published by Irwin Law.
Black's Law Dictionary Free Online Legal Dictionary 2nd Ed. An American resource, but can be helpful for universal legal terms.
Public libraries and Courthouse Libraries BC have legal dictionaries available in print.

Research Resources at Courthouse Libraries BC

Handouts

Courthouse Libraries BC: Who We Are. Describes how our information services and staff can help you do your legal research. (Janet to update this handout)
A Brief Guide to Finding Court Documents. Contains a series of questions and answers written for public librarians to help their patrons look for court documents.

Website tools

Video tutorials. Includes Legal Research Essentials: Finding Cases on Point, which demonstrates how to effectively conduct case law research.
Guides. These include BC legislation and federal legislation, and recent changes to the law.
Digital tools. These are available on computers at branches of Courthouse Libraries BC.
Asked and Answered. A collection of answers to tricky legal research questions.
Recommended books & resources in areas of law, in print only. The online catalogue of Courthouse Libraries BC will show you which of our libraries contain any of the titles listed in these areas of law:
- Civil Litigation
- Family
- Personal Injury
- Other recommended texts:
  - Written Advocacy. Includes sample precedents of pleadings (statements of claim, defences and counter-claims) and how to write an effective legal argument.
  - Bullen & Leake & Jacob's Precedents and Pleadings. Discusses how to draft pleadings and includes sample pleadings in areas such as defamation, employment law, judicial review, personal injury and privacy.
  - McLachlin & Taylor or British Columbia Court Forms. Comprehensive textbook that discusses drafting pleadings and provides precedents.
  - Civil Trial Handbook. Offers information about trial preparation and strategy. It combines legal and procedural material and gives practical information that includes objectives, pointers, and strategy.
  - Sanagan’s Encyclopedia of words and phrases, legal maxims, Canada. Can help you find the meaning of legal words as defined by Canadian courts, and provide references to statutes or cases where words or phrases are defined.
  - Canadian Encyclopedic Digest. Comprehensive encyclopedia of Canadian law, which includes references to relevant statutes and case law.
  - Halsbury’s Laws of Canada. Describes over 100 legal topics, with references to relevant statutes and case law.

Online Guides to Legal Research

These are written for law students and lawyers to help them prepare for a case.

Legal Research Essentials: Finding Cases on Point from the Law Society of BC. This online course of videos and quizzes was developed by Courthouse Libraries BC.
Best Guide to Legal Research by Catharine Best. Includes a link to Suggested Textbooks.
Research Guide for Beginners from the Bora Laskin Law Library (Ontario).

Beginner's Guide to Finding Legal Information © Courthouse Libraries BC 2015 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada Licence.

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 {{Template:Beginner's Guide to Finding Legal Information TOC}}
-Secondary sources can provide an overview of legal topics in plain language. We have pulled together the following recommended secondary sources to help you start your research.
+==Clicklaw website==
+'''Clicklaw website''' is BC’s primary resource for legal information. It links to a large collection of legal information resources for the public. See the handout [http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/docs/default-source/lawmatters/Clicklaw_Handout__Top_Five_AND_HelpMap__12-08-28.pdf?sfvrsn=0 Clicklaw: 5 ways to search, and Using the Clicklaw HelpMap].
-==Clicklaw website==
+Clicklaw also includes [http://wiki.clicklaw.bc.ca/index.php/Main_Page Clicklaw wikibooks], which are a series of 20 legal guides that are fully searchable, and can be downloaded in print or ePub formats. A good place to start is with the wikibook, Legal Help for British Columbians, which provides first steps for over 40 common legal problems.
-'''Clicklaw website''' is BC’s primary resource for legal information. It links to a large collection of legal information resources for the public. See the handout [http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/docs/default-source/lawmatters/Clicklaw_Handout__Top_Five_AND_HelpMap__12-08-28.pdf?sfvrsn=0 Clicklaw: 5 ways to search, and Using the Clicklaw HelpMap]. Clicklaw also includes [http://wiki.clicklaw.bc.ca/index.php/Main_Page Clicklaw Wikibooks], which are a series of 20 legal guides that are fully searchable, and can be downloaded in print or ePub formats.
 ==Legal Dictionaries and Glossaries==
-*[http://www.clicklaw.bc.ca/resource/2219 Multilingual Legal Glossary]  Lists 5000 Canadian legal and court-related terms in English plain language, and their equivalents in eight other languages (Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Farsi, Korean, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
+*[http://www.clicklaw.bc.ca/resource/2219 Multilingual Legal Glossary]. Lists 5000 Canadian legal and court-related terms in English plain language, and their equivalents in eight other languages (Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Farsi, Korean, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese).
-*[http://www.clicklaw.bc.ca/resource/1493 BC Supreme Court Terms] - provides brief definitions of commonly used legal terms to assist self-represented litigants with civil, non-family claims in the Supreme Court of BC.
+*[http://www.clicklaw.bc.ca/resource/1493 BC Supreme Court Terms]. Provides brief definitions of commonly used legal terms to assist self-represented litigants with civil, non-family claims in the Supreme Court of BC.
-*[http://wiki.clicklaw.bc.ca/index.php/Terminology JP Boyd on Family law - Terminology] – offers JP Boyd’s plain-language definitions of common legal words and phrases in family law.
+*[http://wiki.clicklaw.bc.ca/index.php/Terminology JP Boyd on Family law - Terminology]. Offers JP Boyd’s plain-language definitions of common legal words and phrases in family law.
-*[http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/content/complete/statreg/?xsl=/templates/browse.xsl BC Laws Glossary]  - found in the Statutes and Regulations on bclaws.ca, this glossary offers further explanation of terms used in the legislation.
+*[http://www.bclaws.ca/civix/content/complete/statreg/?xsl=/templates/browse.xsl BC Laws Glossary]. Found in the Statutes and Regulations on bclaws.ca, this glossary offers further explanation of terms used in the legislation.
-*[https://www.irwinlaw.com/cold Irwin Law’s Canadian Online Legal Dictionary] - a dictionary of terms defined in the glossaries of Canadian law books published by Irwin Law.
+*[https://www.irwinlaw.com/cold Irwin Law’s Canadian Online Legal Dictionary]. A dictionary of terms defined in the glossaries of Canadian law books published by Irwin Law.
-*[http://thelawdictionary.org/ Black's Law Dictionary Free Online Legal Dictionary] 2nd Ed - an American resource, but it can be helpful for universal legal terms.
+*[http://thelawdictionary.org/ Black's Law Dictionary Free Online Legal Dictionary] 2nd Ed. An American resource, but can be helpful for universal legal terms.
 *[http://www.bclibraries.ca/contacts/ Public libraries] and [http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/default.aspx Courthouse Libraries BC] have legal dictionaries available in print.
@@ Line 20: / Line 21: @@
 ===Handouts===
-*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/docs/default-source/lawmatters/Courthouse_Libraries_Who_We_Are.pdf?sfvrsn=0 Courthouse Libraries BC: Who We Are] Describes how our information services and staff can help you do your legal research. (Janet to update this handout)
+*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/docs/default-source/lawmatters/Courthouse_Libraries_Who_We_Are.pdf?sfvrsn=0 Courthouse Libraries BC: Who We Are]. Describes how our information services and staff can help you do your legal research. (Janet to update this handout)
-*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/docs/default-source/lawmatters/FindingCourtDocs.doc?sfvrsn=0 A Brief Guide to Finding Court Documents] Contains a series of questions and answers written for public librarians to help their patrons look for court documents.
+*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/docs/default-source/lawmatters/FindingCourtDocs.doc?sfvrsn=0 A Brief Guide to Finding Court Documents].  Contains a series of questions and answers written for public librarians to help their patrons look for court documents.
-*Resources to Help with Notice of Civil Claim in Supreme Court (Janet to create link)
 ===Website tools===
-*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/training/videos.aspx Video tutorials] Videos created to help the legal community with  different databases and resources
+*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/training/videos.aspx Video tutorials]. Includes [http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/training/videos/FindingCasesOnPoint.aspx Legal Research Essentials: Finding Cases on Point], which demonstrates how to effectively conduct case law research.
-**Includes [http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/training/videos/FindingCasesOnPoint.aspx Legal Research Essentials: Finding Cases on Point], which demonstrates how to effectively conduct case law research
+*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/training/HowToGuides.aspx Guides]. These include BC legislation and federal legislation, and recent changes to the law.
-*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/training/HowToGuides.aspx Guides] Include BC Legislation and Federal Legislation, and recent changes to the law
+*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/clientservices/digitaltools1.aspx Digital tools]. These are available on computers at branches of  Courthouse Libraries BC.
-*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/clientservices/digitaltools1.aspx Digital tools] available at courthouse Libraries.
+*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/training/AskedAndAnswered.aspx Asked and Answered]. A collection of answers to tricky legal research questions.
-*[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/training/AskedAndAnswered.aspx Asked and Answered] A collection of answers to tricky legal research questions. Such as “How do I stop a bailiff/possession order?” and “How can I find out who owns apartment buildings in BC?”
+*Recommended books & resources in areas of law, in print only. The online [http://opac.courthouselibrary.ca/Catalogues/Search.aspx catalogue] of Courthouse Libraries BC will show you which of our libraries contain any of the titles listed in these areas of law:
-*Recommended books & resources in areas of law, in print only. Our online [http://opac.courthouselibrary.ca/Catalogues/Search.aspx catalogue] will show you which of our libraries contain any of the titles listed in these areas of law:
 **[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/practice/CivilLitigation/CivilLitRecs.aspx Civil Litigation]
 **[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/practice/Familylaw/RecommendedBooksResources.aspx Family]
 **[http://www.courthouselibrary.ca/practice/PersonalInjury/RecommendedBooksResources.aspx Personal Injury]
 **Other recommended texts:
-***''Written Advocacy'' - Includes sample precedents of pleadings (statements of claim, defences and counter-claims) and how to write an effective legal argument.
+***''Written Advocacy''. Includes sample precedents of pleadings (statements of claim, defences and counter-claims) and how to write an effective legal argument.
-***''Bullen & Leake & Jacob's Precedents and Pleadings'' - Discusses how to draft pleadings and includes sample pleadings in areas such as defamation, employment law, judicial review, personal injury and privacy.
+***''Bullen & Leake & Jacob's Precedents and Pleadings''. Discusses how to draft pleadings and includes sample pleadings in areas such as defamation, employment law, judicial review, personal injury and privacy.
-***''McLachlin & Taylor or British Columbia Court Forms'' - Comprehensive textbook that discusses drafting pleadings and provides precedents.
+***''McLachlin & Taylor or British Columbia Court Forms''. Comprehensive textbook that discusses drafting pleadings and provides precedents.
-***''Civil Trial Handbook'' - Offers information about trial preparation and strategy. It combines legal and procedural material and gives practical information that includes objectives, pointers, and strategy.
+***''Civil Trial Handbook''. Offers information about trial preparation and strategy. It combines legal and procedural material and gives practical information that includes objectives, pointers, and strategy.
 ***''Sanagan’s Encyclopedia of words and phrases, legal maxims, Canada''. Can help you find the meaning of legal words as defined by Canadian courts, and provide references to statutes or cases where words or phrases are defined.
-***''Canadian Encyclopedic Digest'' - Comprehensive encyclopedia of Canadian law, which includes references to relevant statutes and case law.
+***''Canadian Encyclopedic Digest''. Comprehensive encyclopedia of Canadian law, which includes references to relevant statutes and case law.
-***''Halsbury’s Laws of Canada'' – describes over 100 legal topics, with references to relevant statutes and case law.
+***''Halsbury’s Laws of Canada''. Describes over 100 legal topics, with references to relevant statutes and case law.
 ==Online Guides to Legal Research==
-Online Guides to Legal Research – written for law students and lawyers to prepare for a case.
+These are written for law students and lawyers to help them prepare for a case.
-*[https://learnlsbc.ca/node/521 Legal Research Essentials: Finding Cases on Point] – from the Law Society of BC. This online course of videos and quizzes was developed by Courthouse Libraries BC
+*[https://learnlsbc.ca/node/521 Legal Research Essentials: Finding Cases on Point] from the Law Society of BC. This online course of videos and quizzes was developed by Courthouse Libraries BC.
-*[http://legalresearch.org/ Best Guide to Legal Research]  by Catharine Best Includes a link to [http://legalresearch.org/essentials/process/commentary/texts/suggested-textbooks/ Suggested Textbooks]
+*[http://legalresearch.org/ Best Guide to Legal Research] by Catharine Best. Includes a link to [http://legalresearch.org/essentials/process/commentary/texts/suggested-textbooks/ Suggested Textbooks].
-*[http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/resguide/beginnersguide.htm Research Guide for Beginners] from the Bora Laskin Law Library (Ontario)
+*[http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/resguide/beginnersguide.htm Research Guide for Beginners] from the Bora Laskin Law Library (Ontario).
-*[http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/resguide/beginnersguide.htm Legal Research and Writing] by Ted Tjaden
-==More Recommended Online Resources==
-*[[Legal_Help_for_British_Columbians | Legal Help for British Columbians]] Provides first steps for over 40 common legal problems.
-*[http://www.canlii.org/en/commentary.html The CanLII Commentary page] has recently added some resources, including an [https://www.canlii.org/en/commentary/wrongfuldismissal/ eText on Wrongful Dismissal and Employment Law]  and [https://www.canlii.org/en/commentary/charterDigest/ The Canadian Charter of Rights Decisions Digest]
-*[http://www.cba.org/ClassActions/main/gate/index/about.aspx National Class Action Database] lists class actions (an action brought by one person as a representative of many persons with similar claims) across Canada.
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