Yesterday at Slaw I posted about some legal research apps.  Today I want to tell you how I use my iPad for mobile research.  For me, it is about two things.  Being prepared and carrying convenience.

I download things that I know I will likely need and I don’t carry paper, or a laptop.  What kind of things do I mean?

• I have a current copy of the Rules of Court in PDF in iBooks sorted into a “legislation” folder [note that it is UP TO ME to make sure this is current]
• I also have a PDF copy

There are about 2300 public libraries in Canada. This doesn’t include a count of libraries with multiple branches. The bottom line is that most Canadians will have access to information that they need from a public library near them.

Today’s Tip is to make use of those wonderful resources. Books like the Handbook of Fixed Income Securities by Frank J. Fabozzi (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 2012) or The Master Painters Institute Approved Products List 2012, which reveals the architectural painting specification manual, may never be items that you would purchase. They will absolutely be available through a public library*.

If something you …

Jack Newton posted an excellent email tip on Slaw way back in February 2013. He suggested creating an email rule that moved email with the word “unsubscribe” to a Robots folder so that it skipped your inbox and let you concentrate on the most important of your email and no the automated messages (newsletters, alerts from Twitter, etc).  I have been using this tip with glee since his posting to filter my inbox and only check my Robots folder once per day.

Until today.

Thanks (and I say that with a bit of snark) to CASL, I am now delaying …

An event reminder by the Canadian Association of Law Libraries about the Substantive Law Webinar Series gets a Hat Tip for providing Today’s Research Tip. The Tip is to seek out opportunities to learn things via webinar.  Plenty of associations and organizations, including some law firms, are offering webinars on useful topics that will make legal research in a new or unfamiliar area a little bit easier.

CALL is offering:

Substantive Law Webinar Series

The Webinar Committee is pleased to offer a series of substantive law webinars delivered by Ted Tjaden. Ted delivered a webinar on Civil Procedure in March,

My carpenter partner likes to say, “A House is a work in progress”. I agree. Just because you have a yellow kitchen this year doesn’t mean that you can’t decide to paint it purple next year. Work In Progress, or WIP is frequently used in law firms to designate things that are not yet to the point where we ask a client to pay for them. Thinking about WIP and executing your work to the valued level when you are acting on client files is good business.

Beware of holding things as WIP for non-billable work. Items like checklists, documents …

I just attended a lunch session with a Court of Appeal Justice on the topic of legal research. You might think, why would an experienced legal researcher and law librarian spend a lunch hour listening to a topic that she knows? I have two very good reasons, the basis of today’s tip, for attending presentations and seminars on areas within your realm of experience.

1. When you hear from others that your own process is very similar to theirs, it validates your process. It also may question your assumptions about your process if someone else’s best method differs from your own.

September 24 is National Punctuation Day in the U.S. Though this isn’t a statutory (or highly celebrated) holiday in Canada, the fact that there are people in the world who care about and critique punctuation delights me.

In all seriousness, punctuation is a problem in a searcher’s world. Time writer Katy Steinmetz shares some details about how punctuation is evolving and John Davis had some interesting things to say in a 2009 Slaw post. I also confess that I have this Apostrophes page on  grammarbook.com as a favourite.

Today’s Tip: if your search term might be more relevant with …

After all these years of reading cases there are still times when I get to the end and think, “Who won?”. This is especially true when parties are numerous and placeholders are used rather than names in a judgment.  A lengthy decision with references to plaintiff, defendant, appellant, respondent, and co-defendant rather than Smith or Jones can be difficult visualize in context. It is also confusing when mutiple points of law are under consideration parties have mixed success.

Today’s tip: chart the outcome of a decision so you have a visual reference.

Create a graph, chart or picture that shows …

Today’s Tip was inspired by the CBA Futures Report at page 22

I have a circle on a page, and within that circle I have the word client. Around that circle are five other circles. One says,‘Is that legal task necessary, or is it waste?’ One says, ‘Is the person performing that legal task the most cost-effective resource?’ Another says, ‘Is the process transparent to the client? Do they know what is being done, why it is being done, and who is doing it? The next one says, ‘Does the process use checklists, templates and technology to help save time

It is an excellent time to be involved in the legal information profession.  Rapid changes in legal publishing, legal informtion technologies, web functionality and the accessibility of information make legal research an interesting and exciting challenge.

Yesterday, I told some law school students that I take advantage of vendor offered training sessions regularly. One of the reasons for this is that there are so many improvements, tweaks, and enhancements that are made to each and every legal research tool that it is very easy to get into habits that may limit the usefulness of your gathering task. Another reason is …