Purpose and Basic Steps of Legal Research

Law research steps are specialized. You must

 Identify a legal issue after hearing the story of a client’s problem;
 Familiarize yourself with, find, and work with specialized legal
research tools and sources; and
 Apply the law you find so that you can solve the client’s problem.
A legal professional will engage in legal research to learn about the
law, so that he or she can take action or advise a client how to
proceed in a given situation. E.g.: consider the foll situations, each
involving a diff. area of law:
- A commercial lawyers researches case law to advise a client
whether a contract she entered into is valid & whether the other
party can be forced to perform his obligations under the contract
- A family lawyer researches statute law to advise a client whether
the foreign divorce he got is valid & whether he can marry again
w/out bigamy
- A tax lawyer researches statute law & reg to find out whether a
client’s business expense is deductible for tax purposes
- A paralegal/lawyer researches case law clarifying the rules of
court concerning substituted service to prepare to appear on a
motion
- A paralegal researches statute law to advise a landlord client
whether she has grounds to evict her residential tenant

Sources of Law
Substantive, procedural, an evidentiary Canadian law are made up
of a combination of
 Statutes passed by either the federal Parliament or the provincial
legislatures (the Canadian Constitution defines whether it is a
federal or a provincial government that has the power to make
laws in a particular area);
 Regulations made by federal or prov government
 Bylaws made by a municipality (Municipal Act, 2001)
 Case Law: decisions made by judges and adjudicators in court
and tribunal proceedings.

Volume Title Abbreviation

 Annual volumes are abbreviated as: SC (Statutes of Canada),
AND, SO (Statutes of Ontario)
 Revised volumes are abbreviated as: RSC (Revised Statutes of
Canada), AND, RSO (Revised Statutes of Ontario)
 SC 1989 (Statutes of Canada for 1989), SO 1993 (Statutes of
Ontario for 1993), RSC (Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985
revision), RSO 1980 (Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1980 revision)

How Regulations are Created

Regulations can come into fore upon ‘filing’, ‘registration,’ or
‘publication’; the wording differs in each jurisdiction. Federal reg
come into force on the day specified in the reg or on the date of
registration (recorded at the top of the text of the reg.). In ON, reg
come into force on the date in which they are filed, unless the reg
or its enabling statute provides otherwise.

How to Read a Case

These elements are as follows: purpose, facts, issues, law, ratio
decidendi (Latin for “reason for deciding”), decision, and
disposition.
Headnote: editor’s explanation of the case, appearing at the head
of the case
Purpose: the nature of the proceedings
Facts: events that led up to the moment when the cause of action
came into existence
Issues: specific problems that the judge or adjudicator must
resolve to reach a decision
Ratio Decidendi: a combined statement of the pre-existing
principle of law on which the judge based the decision on an issue
and its application to the facts of the particular case; Latin for
“reason for deciding”
Disposition: judge’s order set out at the end of a case
How to Cite A Case
A correct legal citation of a case consists of several parts as
illustrated in the foll ex:
1: Malette v Shulman – style of clause
2: (1990) / [1990] – year
3: 67 – law report volume number
4: DLR – name of law report series
5: (4th) – law report series number
6: 321 – page number
7: (Ont CA) – jurisdiction and court
Style of clause: portion of the citation that sets out the names of
the parties; also called a case name
N.B.: Comma must be before [ ] Comma must be after ( )

Parallel Citations: tells you about other reports where the same
case can be found. Parallel citations are separated by commas
Neutral Citations: identifies only the case itself, and not where the
case may be found in a publication. The neutral citation consists of
the foll four elements:
1: Style of clause
2: the year of the decision
3: an abbreviation of the name of the court or tribunal that made the
decision
4: a chronological number indicating the decision place in the
sequence of cases decided in that year

Binding law is law that must be followed by a particular court. It

could be statute law, regulatory law, and/or case law.
Persuasive law is case law that a particular court or tribunal is not
legally required to follow but is permitted to follow – as long as it
doesn’t conflict with binding law.

Multiple Ratios: in a case on appeal, where there is a majority

opinion and a dissenting opinion (a different decision by a minority
of the appeal judges).

Obiter dicta: statements made by a court in its reasons for

judgment that may be of interest but that are inessential to the
decision and therefore have no binding authority (Latin words for
‘words by the way’)

Provincial and Territorial Courts

A decision of a prov or terr Court of Appeal, the highest level of
court in a prov or terr, binds every court in that prov or terr.
A decision of the superior court, the second-highest level of court in
a prov or terr, may be considered binding on a prov or terr court,
the third highest level of court in a prov or terr. (Note that prov or
terr courts are sometimes called ‘inferior’ courts to distinguished
then from the courts if appeal or the superior courts.)
A decision of a prov or terr court is not binding on, but is persuasive
to, other judges of prov or terr courts (particularly those of that prov
or terr.)

Secondary sources: legal encyclopedias; textbooks; loose-leaf

services (texts that are updated on a continuing basis); articles,
including conference and seminar materials; digest of cases; and
indexes to statutes or cases
Primary sources: statutes, bylaws, regulations and case law

Boolean Searches
In a Boolean search (named for a British mathematician, George
Boole), the computer hunts through thousands of documents to
locate requested combinations of words or phrases. The basic
connectors are OR, AND and NOT.

Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (CED) is one of the most

comprehensive sec sources for legal research. It is a loose-leaf
multi-volume legal encyclopedia that provides a very general
overview of most areas of Canadian law, & it is an excellent place
to begin when you know very little about the area of law that you
are researching.

Noteworthy
3d not 3rd s. – section ss. – sections
O. Reg – Ontario Regulations