Computer Applications: January 12th, 2001 Why do we study QuickLaw? - it is the most prevalent (owns ~90% off the market) - why? it is the most comprehensive. Has every judgment from every court in Canada since 1985. Note the three buttons in QuickLink: Quit & two QL buttons The first connects to the new web-browser styled interface, the second to the older, clunkier version. Note that the Database Directory is not searchable. The use the 'drill down' approach; where you keep selecting things until you've narrowed it down to what you want. Use Jurisdictional to see what they have for particular areas/regions. Use Topical to see what they have for certain areas of the law. TEMPLATE SEARCHING - the default set-up for searching QL daatabases - good when you are looking for finite ttopics, easily described in a few words - by no means the better way; boolean iss by far the best - more specific Ranking: statistical vs. newest (4 choices) Automatic Plurals: will automatically pluralise any of your search terms Case Name Court Judge Counsel Any field: where you'll do most of your searching NOTE the variations: any of these words (OR) all of these words (AND) all words in same paragraph all words 'near' each other exact phrase QuickLaw query syntax Search terms appear highlighted in yellow, once you select a particular case. Use "locate next" to find them quickly within the document (at the top). Wait until document has loaded completely, or this will not work properly (will tell you there are no more occurrences of your search terms in the document, when in truth they simply haven't loaded yet). Remember to Note-Up with QuickCite - QuickLaw citations look something likee blahblah J. No. ### - tells you if it's been reported - lets you know what the status of that particular case is - may direct you to related cases - shows you the history of the case - also indicates how this case has been treated by other courts, in other cases (judicial consideration) - Treatment links to all these cases; listed by judicial hierarchy (SCC listed first, followed by C.A.s, etc...) Followed: very important Explained: might be useful Mentioned: pretty useless; just means it was thrown in, not discussed DRS stands for Dominion Report Service - basically a headnote database - can be searched independently (type inn DRS) Expanders when Searching: ! - When searching, you can use the truncation symbol (!) in any of the template search fields * - stands for any character (use when there are alternate spellings) Computer Applications: February 2nd, 2001 SEARCHING THE WEB - several hand-outs COMPARING THE SEARCH ENGINES Note www.searchengineshowdown.com - ranks search engines yearly Best this past year: 1. www.alltheweb.com 2. www.google.com 3. www.northernlight.com One new search engine: www.oingo.com - concept-oriented, searches by concepts, not word-recognition META SEARCH ENGINGES - search many search engines at once Several of Note: www.metacrawler.com www.dogpile.com - one difference: MetaCrawler eliminatees the duplicates; DogPile does not YAHOO! - organised into categories - drill-down method - also have local YAHOO!s SEARCH STRATEGIES - check out each Search Engine's help fiiles (she gave us the one from www.alltheweb.com) Feb.24, 2001 AMERICAN COURT SYSTEM States: Court of Appeal (in 38 states) Superior Court/County Court (like QB) Federal: U.S. Supreme Court U.S. Court of Appeal U.S. District Court Divided into 13 Circuits & 89 Districts How Cases are Reported: State Level: - trial is not reported - appeal is reported regionally (put out by West - as in Westlaw) A,P,S,SW,SE,NW,NE. Federally: - U.S.S.C. report - a few years behind - Westlaw's S.Ct. - up-to-date - F.3rd - appeals - F.Supp. - trial *note that judges, not editors, decide which cases are to be reported (vice versa in Canada) - however, all Supreme Court decisions get reported WESTLAW Terminology KeyCite (aka Shepherdise) = Note-up w/ Quickcite Red flag = case has been reversed Yellow flag = some negative history (some part not followed) H = has not been considered - Can search multiple databases - Westlaw directory is like Quicklaw's DDatabase Directory - Westlaw is highly competitive with Lexxis-Nexis. - Lexis-Nexis still has the better selection of international materials - Westlaw contains over 1000 journals/peeriodicals (all full-text!) - can check the hardcopy to see if your journal is included - searching is basically the same as Quiicklaw (except use /s for within sentence) - Westlaw has put on a number of old casses - to start a brand new search click "Wellcome" - when searching, click on Field Restricctions & the search template will pop-up - try entering your search terms in the Headnote or Synopsis - to e-mail a case to yourself, next to Print (in combo box) click on Print/Deliver & enter your e-mail address OVERVIEW OF THE ENGLISH COURT SYSTEM Unitary state; 1 main court system 2 Streams: Civil | Criminal House of Lords ^ Court of Appeal (2 divisions) / \ High Court of Justice| Crown Court (3 divs) | (Q.B.) (Chan.) (Family) | ^ ^ | County Court | Magistrates - 1865: Independent Council on Law Repoorting was formed; law reporting system reformed - court-specific reporter series' created, simply called Law Reports - printed by the courts themselves) - some privately-run series still availaable (All England Reports; Lloyd's Law Report) LEXIS-NEXIS (www.lexis.com/research) - note that databases are called 'sourcees' - drill-down method of source location ((mainly American) - only Legal (excluding US) is non-American - in direct competition with WestLaw - our student passwords don't give us acccess to the very best stuff - attempting to be far more internationaal in scope than other services - Canadian part: good stuff on treates & journals (exceeds QuickLaw in these two areas) - when searching you have the choice of terms & connectors or natural language - different ways to view search results Cite: just citation KWIC: keywords in context (surrounded by 25 words on either side) Full: full text of the cases Custom: you can customise what it shows you - click on FOCUS to search within your search results (narrow your search results) - hit "Edit Search Terms" to revise your search - you can search for terms in particular parts of the document by clicking on Document Segments, then using the combo-boxes at the bottom (try CatchWords - like the ones that appear at the top of a headnote separated by dashes) - click on Get a Document if you know thhe citation (need not go to the correct database or anything)