Research Service Terms of Use

We live in a world where it is generally acknowledge that even though many web services that we use have terms of service, nobody reads them. Stop that bad habit right now. Especially for fee based legal research services. Do you understand what you have agreed to when you use WestlawNext Canada or LexisNexis Quicklaw?

By highlighting this as Today’s Tip I am NOT suggesting that fee based research services are inherently bad – I believe the opposite – I would not want to perform legal research for clients without a subscription to a fee based research service that delivers excellent value added content to my screen.

Today’s Tip IS intended to remind every searcher (not just the law librarians) to understand the license agreements so that they adhere to the terms. Most often, your firm’s law librarian will hit the highlights during training. The WestlawNext Canada License Agreement and LexisNexis Quicklaw Terms & Conditions  are available from the sign on pages.

CanLII (and every other legitimate web service) offers Terms of Use as well.  Pay attention to this:

Users remain responsible for checking whether the intended use of the documents is authorized.

Knowledge is security – seek it out.