Author: The Great Library

Free Legal Citation Guides

If you’re working remotely, you may be missing some of your trusted legal research tools and sources. We understand! Without access to the Great Library’s formidable print collection and a full slate of electronic resources, we law librarians are making do – being creative, resourceful and fully exploiting the best free legal information sources to provide research assistance.

Last week we covered free sources for finding free CPD (continuing professional development) articles. This week we’re sharing some tips on finding free legal citation resources.

If you don’t have a copy of the current edition of the McGill Guide (Canadian Guide to Legal Citation, 9th ed., Thomson Reuters, 2018) at hand or a subscription to the online version on Westlaw Next Canada, don’t despair.  You can still find guidance on how to properly cite that case, statute or text section you’re relying on.

Many Canadian university and law school libraries have created quick reference citation guides based on the current McGill Guide. These guides typically distill the rules in McGill to provide a clear explanation and plenty of examples to show you how to cite legal materials from cases to blogs.

Here’s a selection:

Like the McGill Guide itself, these online citation guides won’t cover everything. There will always be times when you’ll need to improvise.

When doing so, remember the two cardinal rules of legal citation: be kind to your reader (provide clear, complete and accurate information so they can find what you’re citing) and be consistent in your style and formatting.

House of Bills: A Weekly Update on Ontario Bills

Below, we have compiled a list of those bills which progressed through the House during the emergency sessions of March 19 and March 25. As of now, the House stands adjourned until Tuesday, April 14. Additionally, all committee meetings have been cancelled until further notice.

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Sitting dates: March 19 & 25
42nd Parliament, 1st Session

Bill 181, Supply Act, 2020
Royal assent (March 19)

Bill 186, Employment Standards Amendment Act (Infectious Disease Emergencies), 2020
First reading (March 19)
Second reading, carried (March 19)
Third reading, carried (March 19)
Royal Assent (March 19)

Bill 187, Municipal Emergency Act, 2020
First reading (March 19)
Second reading, carried (March 19)
Third reading, carried (March 19)
Royal assent (March 19)

Bill 188, Economic and Fiscal Update Act, 2020
First Reading (March 25)
Second Reading, carried (March 25)
Third Reading, carried (March 25)
Royal Assent (March 25)

Remote Access to Online CPD Materials

Did you know that you can remotely access continuing professional development (CPD) materials through the Great Library’s catalogue? Whether searching through the “Everything”1or “CPD”2 tab (shown below), you can search, summon, download and send digitized CPD materials remotely.

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Searches using the “Everything” tab are conducted on the search platform InfoLocate. While searches on this platform will summon results other than CPD materials, you can use the filter “Online Law Society CLE Articles” found on the left to narrow your results to only include online CPD materials. See below:

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Searches using the “CPD” tab are conducted using the database AccessCLE. This database is home to hundreds of free, digitized PDFs of Law Society of Ontario CPD materials.

Another place to look for online CPD materials is CanLII. The County of Carleton Law Association CPD materials from 2018 and 2019 were recently made available on CanLII’s “Commentary” platform. Find these by navigating to the “Conference Proceedings” link on the Commentary page, or click here.

Having access to CPD materials can really come in handy as they are a great way to keep up to date on emerging legal issues and can act as primers or introductory overviews of major legal topics in a given field. They are also great tools for finding forms and precedents!