Guidelines for Online Research of Cases

Guidelines for Computer Research

Best Guide to Canadian Legal Research
Copyright © 1995-2008 Catherine P. Best
Conditions and terms of use

	Use full text research in conjunction with other research tools
	Know your product
	Use standardized search syntax
	Use proximity connectors
	Refine and modify your search
	Overcoming literal search engines
	References

Use full text research in conjunction with other research tools

Most legal research is now done through searching collections of case law in full text. This type of research is most effective if used in conjunction with other research tools, and if the researcher understands the electronic research product.

Commercial databases and free Internet sites provide access to a vast amount of case law. This has led to a tendency to go straight to keyword searches to find relevant cases, rather than using other types of finding tools and secondary sources which were the traditional entry points for research. The latter approach has value, because it forces the researcher to place the problem within a conceptual framework, provides analysis of the legal point, and may direct the researcher to related topics or issues that should be considered. Good research should embrace both the narrow approach enabled by keyword research in primary sources, and the broader conceptual approach enabled by secondary sources. Even if you start with keyword searches in the case law, be sure to review relevant secondary sources to gain additional context and understanding of the law.

Even a very good query will not necessarily retrieve all relevant cases. Studies have documented that lawyers conducting electronic research retrieve far less of the relevant case law than they think. That is another reason why you should incorporate commentary (texts, journals, CLE papers, encyclopedias) and other finding tools (citators, digests, etc.) in your research.

Know your product

Some of the basic features that a user should understand:

	What information is included, and how current is it?
	What is the search syntax?
	How are the search results ranked?
	How are you, and your clients, being charged for your use?

Use standardized search syntax

There are variations in search syntax between products. However, techniques for standardizing your search queries will help overcome the variations between WestlaweCARSWELL, Quicklaw and CanLII.

	Always put phrases in quotation marks.
	Write out AND and OR rather than assuming that a space between two words will be treated as one or the other.
	Use parentheses to force the order in which your terms will be evaluated, if you are at all unsure.

This site uses these techniques in syntax examples and in its discussion of query formulation. This should simplify things and reduce the learning curve if you use multiple platforms.

Use proximity connectors

Full text cases are long documents. Using AND as a connector means the words could appear anywhere in the document. Your relevancy will be greatly improved by looking for terms within a sentence, paragraph, or certain number of words of each other. This is referred to as a proximity connector.

Novice researchers often search for words as a phrase without considering whether the terms always appear as a phrase. Consider whether a short proximity connector, such as one word within 5 of the other, would be better. A proximity connector can also look for the terms in either order.

Refine and modify your search

Rather than using a complex narrow query, consider starting with a broader query and then narrowing it. This method may be easier for novice searchers. The leading search tools all provide a way for you to narrow or refine your search, without incurring additional notional charges.

Review the first few documents and use the feedback from your search results to incorporate other terms and improve your query.

Overcoming literal search engines

Most search engines are very literal. When you conduct computer research, in most cases you get only what you asked for. You do not see the surrounding material that would jump out at you from a page in a book. You must therefore have a healthy suspicion index. Think of the various ways your problem could have been described in the document, and the various spellings or word forms the terms could take.

	Use the truncation features of the service to search for word variations.. Truncation involves ending the word with a symbol - usually ! or * - at the point where the root ends. For example, in WestlaweCARSWELL and Quicklaw, negligen! would search for negligence, negligent and negligently.
	If available, use a natural language search engine that will automatically search for word variants. WestlaweCARSWELL has an excellent natural language search engine, and CanLII's search engine looks for word variants.
	Think of synonyms to describe the same concept or article, such as vehicle and automobile. WestlaweCARSWELL includes a Thesaurus to help you identify synonyms.

References

Blair & Maron, "An Evaluation of Retrieval Effectiveness for a Full-Text Document Retrieval System", (1985) 28 Com. ACM 289; Dabney, "The Curse of Thamus: An Analysis of Full-Text Legal Document Retrieval" (1986) 78 Law Libr. J. 5; Berring, "Full-Text Databases and Legal Research: Backing into the Future" (1986) 1 High Technology L.J. 27. Cf. Burson, "A Reconstruction of Thamus: Comments on the Evaluation of Legal Information Retrieval Systems" (1987) 79 Law Libr. J. 133.

Law Library Resource Exchange.

MacEllven, Legal Research Handbook, 4th ed. (Toronto: Butterworths, 1998).

Peoples, "The death of the digest and the pitfalls of modern electronic research: what is the modern legal researcher to do?" (2005) 97 Law Library Journal 661.

Wren & Wren, Using Computers in Legal Research (Madison: Adams & Ambrose, 1999).

Zivanovic, Guide to Electronic Legal Research (Toronto: Butterworths, 2002).