New ways to start your research
December, 2002
LawSource users can now access two more secondary sources for their legal research:
1. Exclusive to WestlaweCARSWELL™, the complete Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (CED), comprising of the combined Ontario and Western editions, is available online in one integrated interface.
2. Articles from law reviews and journals published by leading universities and institutions.
Accessing the Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (CED)
The CED was first published in 1913 and is the only legal encyclopedia in Canada. The combined Ontario and Western work is now available online exclusively on LawSource. The CED is organized alphabetically across 226 Subject Titles, which are further subdivided into headings and subheadings dealing with particular legal points. Each heading or subheading provides a quick overview of current law, with concise summaries written by experienced practitioners and supported by legislative and case law authority.
On LawSource, you can browse or search the CED seamlessly, easily and conveniently via several access points:
1. You can use the CED Custom Search Template to search for keywords in the entire text of the CED, or narrow your search to the CED Subject Title Key, or headings and sub-headings within each title in the Key;
2. You can browse the CED table of contents and drill down to the specific topic you wish to research;
3. You can link directly to cases referenced in the CED summaries; and
4. While viewing a case, you can use the KeyCiteCanada citator to find any CED paragraphs that refer to the case.
Since you can find a wide range of legal topics and situations in the CED, the summaries and legislative references are especially useful for unfamiliar areas of law. The CED can also serve as a basic introduction for areas of law that do not typically arise in your practice.
Accessing articles from journals and law reviews
Another useful starting point is LawSource’s collection of law review and journal articles. These include legal academic journals from Queen's University, McGill, Osgoode Hall, University of Toronto, and other law schools, professional legal organizations and institutions, as well as all articles ever published in Carswell's law reports.
In LawSource, you can search for articles by keywords in the article’s full text, its title, or by the author’s name. If the article contains references to cases within footnotes, you can instantly link to them.
Articles that analyze legal issues in greater depth are often at the vanguard of emerging legal trends that pre-date litigation. Such issues are often first explored and given life in academic journals and reviews. Therefore, these articles can be persuasive in any ground-breaking litigation.
Using LawSource for CED and article research
LawSource allows you not only to jump between documents seamlessly without opening and closing disparate databases, but it also provides you with related information at the ready, which you can instantly access with a click of the mouse.
With its integration of secondary sources and case law, LawSource is the ideal platform for your research. |