(This tip is courtesy of Bronwyn Guiton.)

Librarians are frequently asked to provide lists of legislation from across Canada. To save time answering these kinds of questions, keep a handy list of the provinces and territories in the Notes tool in Outlook. Then when you are asked these kinds of questions you can just paste this list into your email or Word document, saving time and effort.

— Bronwyn Guiton…

Can all grinders become finders?

The need for heads-up entrepreneurial lawyers grows as heads-down commodity “grinder” work diminishes. How can we develop more “finders” who see fresh opportunities to attract clients on a daily basis? How can we accelerate this shift in mindset? How can we use every interaction to enhance the firm’s reputation for making clients feel they are in good hands? And how can traditional rainmakers become better finders in an evolving marketplace?

While formal strategy sessions are vital to set the firm’s overall marketing and services direction, the day-to-day work of cultivating differentiated, high value consultation and …

Bewildered on Bay Street asks, ‘Is it “travelled” or ‘traveled”? “focussed” or “focused”?’

In the USA, it would be traveled and traveler; travelled and traveller are more usual in Canada. On the other hand, focused is the better way.

Confounded in Calgary writes, ‘Is it ‘Quebecer’ or ‘Quebecker’?

Traditionally, Quebecker is the correct form, although this is less commonly seen nowadays. Logically, the C in Quebecer should be soft (C followed by E or I generally is, in English), and the E long as a result. You need that K to make it a hard C sound and to …

What is a “learning experience”?

Merely “having an experience” does not guarantee how much we will learn from that experience.

Lawyers are rarely trained to excel in the most basic skill required to thrive in today’s work environment: How to learn faster in action. A widely accepted rule of thumb is that 80% of the knowledge needed to do your job is gained informally, during routine work activities and interactions. Yet developing this valuable resource is typically left to chance rather than leveraged intentionally.

A recent issue of The Economist notes, “…employers are putting increasing emphasis on learning as a …

Rangefindr is a fabulous source for searching sentencing ranges in Canada.  If you are a criminal lawyer I highly recommend you speak to your firm librarian or whoever is in charge of licensing online resources.

I have had several people tell me that Rangefindr is difficult to use, and in particular that any search returns only a paucity of hits. So I came here to tell you that there is nothing wrong with Rangefindr – you’re just doing it wrong! There, don’t you feel better now? The problem isn’t with Rangefindr, it’s just your shoddy searching technique.

Basically, you’re checking …

For a humorous take on how not to use e-mail at work: http://qz.com/400461/twelve-ways-to-seem-smarter-by-email/

My own suggestions follow.

Caution
Don’t reply in haste, much less in anger. Think twice before sending something you think is funny.

Proof-read; don’t rely on spell-check.

Beware of ‘bcc’, ‘reply all’, distribution lists and auto-fill for recipient names – especially when you are dealing with privileged and confidential information. Make sure metadata are scrubbed from attachments (they may not be when you use a mobile device).

Think about who needs to be copied (and who does not).

You represent your firm and yourself in every e-mail …

Every so often someone comes to the library with what looks like a particularly odd citation for a case. Odd citations are often a tip-off that the case comes from the English Reports.

The English Reports, also known as the ERs, are a collection of judgments from a number of different English reporters. Because they have been republished, they have a minimum of two citations, e.g. Chudleigh’s Case can be cited both as Jenk. 276 (the original report) and 145 ER 199. The original judgements are known as “nominate reports” because their names generally come from the surname of the …

Accountants are trained in numbers. Architects are trained in design. And lawyers are trained in words.

As a lawyer, when you speak or write, you choose your words judiciously. Am I right?

Every.

Single.

Word.

Means.

Something.

Very.

Specific. 

That is all well and good when it comes to serving clients as a lawyer. Not as well or good when it comes to developing a marketing program (and, yes, I am intentionally taking creative license with my words here for effect).

Here’s the problem…

Lawyers can write. As a result, some think they can, and in fact should, …

It’s surprising that people routinely get things wrong here.

Alternative subjects
If there are two subjects to your sentence, separated by or, the verb should take the number of the subject that is closest to it: Mother or children are to die BUT Is the mother or the children to die? You could also rewrite the sentences to avoid the issue: Mother or children must die, Must mother or children die?

Collective nouns
Is it The committee is or The committee are? There are two schools of thought.

In the US, words like committee, firm and …

This is the fourth and final part of a series on questions you should ask about any electronic research source. Catch parts 1-3 of this series here, here and here.

4. How are the results ORDERED?

Don’t assume relevance ranking. Our databases, for example, always order the results in reverse chronology (newest to oldest). These days, many databases offer ranking options (usually in a drop-down menu). So if you are looking at a case law database, think about if you want your results by relevance, date, court level or number of cites. If there are a large number …