À la découverte: La bibliothèque du Code civil de la province de Québec

Par: George Yeryomin, étudiant à la Faculté de droit de l’Université McGill, assistant de référence à la Bibliothèque Gelber

Le droit civil en tant que tradition juridique s’étend sur plus de deux millénaires et demie d’histoire depuis la fondation de Rome, et ses principes et sa doctrine se trouvent contenus dans un grand nombre de lois et écrits monumentaux : les lois royales, la Loi des XII Tables, la codification monumentale de l’empereur Justinien, dont est issu le jus commune européen, élaboré et enrichi continuellement par tant d’œuvres et commentaires de jurisconsultes illustres, qui a subsisté pendant des siècles en tant que système de droit vivant jusqu’aux codifications nationales récentes (au XIXè siècle). La multitude des écrits formant la tradition et la doctrine civiliste est donc énormément riche et nombreuse. Mais cela veut-il dire que ces ressources doctrinales ne sont qu’accessibles à un nombre très limité de chercheurs? Bien au contraire, il y a une façon assez simple d’avoir accès aux extraits les plus pertinents de anciens docteurs et jurisconsultes qui ont servi de sources pour les compilateurs du Code civil, dont la lecture peut être d’une grande utilité pour comprendre le raisonnement derrière les règles expliquées de façon assez succincte par les codificateurs. Car il faut se le rappeler, le droit civil n’est pas issu du code, mais plutôt le code est l’expression synthétisée du droit civil.

La méthode que l’on vous propose comporte deux étapes, et aura pour but de vous faire découvrir une œuvre monumentale de la doctrine civiliste québécoise du XIXè siècle, La bibliothèque du Code civil de la province de Québec par Charles-Chamilly de Lorimier et Charles-Albert Vilbon1.

Première étape : trouver la concordance entre le CcQ et le CcBC
Une des façons de le faire est sur le site du CAIJ : https://elois.caij.qc.ca/CCQ-1991

Entrez l’article à propos duquel vous faites la recherche. La page consacrée à cet article vous indique l’équivalence dans le Code civil du Bas-Canada, s’il y en a une.

Dans l’exemple ci-dessous, nous cherchons les sources de l’art 1401 CcQ :

Une autre façon de trouver l’équivalence est d’aller voir l’édition Wilson-Lafleur du CcQ. En bas du texte de chaque article, l’article équivalent au CcBC est donné, s’il y en a un. Sinon, il y a aussi une table de concordance qui offre la concordance pour chaque article du CcQ.

Voici la même démarche à propos de l’art 1401 CcQ dans l’édition Wilson & Lafleur :

Veuillez noter que l’édition Yvon Blais n’offre pas la concordance en dessous du texte de chaque article du CcQ, et la table de concordance à la fin est classifiée selon l’ordre des articles du CcBC, ce qui rend la recherche un peu plus compliquée si notre point de départ est le CcQ.

Deuxième étape : trouvez l’article du CcBC dans La bibliothèque du Code civil
L’ouvrage auquel l’on fait référence est La bibliothèque du Code civil de la province de Québec par Charles-Chamilly de Lorimier et Charles-Albert Vilbon, qui est accessible dans son entièreté sur le site de la bibliothèque de McGill: https://www.library.mcgill.ca/hostedjournals/civilcode.html

Non, La bibliothèque du Code civil n’est pas une bibliothèque au sens propre, mais un ouvrage s’étendant sur plusieurs volumes contenant les autorités et les sources utilisées par les codificateurs pour chaque article du CcBC, allant des lois romaines en passant par les grands jurisconsultes français comme Du Moulin, Pothier, et plusieurs autres, terminant par les nouveaux codes, celui de Napoléon et celui de la Louisiane. Ainsi, cet ouvrage est une mine d’or servant de lien entre la tradition civiliste millénaire et le droit civil contemporain.

Pour vous faciliter la recherche à travers La bibliothèque du Code civil, voici une liste de tous les articles du CcBC contenus dans chacun des volumes de La bibliothèque :
• Vol 1 : 1–122
• Vol 2 : 123–307
• Vol 3 : 308–466
• Vol 4 : 467–565 (début)
• Vol 5 : 565 (suite)–718
• Vol 6 : 719–857
• Vol 7 : 858–1026
• Vol 8 : 1027–1149
• Vol 9 : 1150–1265
• Vol 10 : 1266–1384
• Vol 11 : 1385–1501
• Vol 12 : 1502–1603
• Vol 13 : 1604–1714
• Vol 14 : 1715–1809
• Vol 15 : 1810–1897
• Vol 16 : 1898–1975
• Vol 17 : 1976–2078
• Vol 18 : 2079–2196 (début)
• Vol 19 : 2196 (suite)–2233
• Vol 20 : 2234–2266
• Vol 21 : 2267–2277

Dans l’exemple ci-dessous, nous essayons de trouver les sources de l’art 993 CcCB (l’équivalent de l’art 1401 CcQ) dans La bibliothèque. Grâce à la liste ci-haut, on voit que cet article se trouve analysé au volume 7.

Les deux premières pages à partir d’où l’art 993 CcBC est abordé nous offrent un extrait du Digeste de Justinien (le signe « ff » signifie Digeste) et un extrait de Pothier. Dans les pages suivantes, on peut lire d’autres extraits tirés de Domat et un article du Code Napoléon.

Des questions ? N’hésitez pas à nous contacter : law.library@mcgill.ca.

1Charles-Chamilly de Lorimier et Charles-Albert Vilbon, La bibliothèque du Code civil de la province de Quebec (ci-devant Bas-Canada) : ou recueil comprenant entre autres matières, Montréal : Cadieux & Dérome, 1871-90.

Access to Jus Mundi database, thanks to the Wainwright Fund

Thanks to the generosity of the Wainwright Fund, the library is pleased to announce yet another new database subscription, this time to Jus Mundi – Academic Research, by Brill.

Subscribing to this new and innovative award-winning database was a priority for the library, as it caters directly to two of the Faculty of Law’s research strengths: Arbitration and International Law. Jus Mundi contains “over 16,000 international law and investor-state arbitration documents, including treaties, ICJ, PCIJ, PCA, ITLOS, ICSID and other arbitration institutions, UNCITRAL, IUSCT documents (judgments, arbitral awards, orders, pleadings, etc.), and decisions of the Mixed Claims Commission.” Importantly for our bilingual Faculty, the database offers a multilingual search engine, with several advanced linguistic features.

Jus Mundi is accessible from the Arbitration section of our International Law subject guide, here. Law Faculty and students wishing to book an appointment with a law librarian to receive training on this new database should email reference.law@mcgill.ca.

Accès à la Bibliothèque numérique Dalloz, grâce au Fonds Wainwright

La bibliothèque tient à remercier le Fonds Wainwright pour sa contribution à l’achat de deux accès simultanés à la Bibliothèque numérique Dalloz.

Given the importance of Civil Law research at McGill’s Faculty of Law, we determined that had to make more digital legal materials from France available to our users. This was particularly pressing given the impact of the global pandemic on access to our physical print collections. Access to these digital materials therefore comes at a critical time for our community.

La Bibliothèque numérique Dalloz donne accès à 1 500 ouvrages, incluant les Codes Dalloz, Dalloz action, Lexiques, Précis Dalloz, les manuels universitaires, les ouvrages de révision, et bien plus, en version feuilletable. Cet accès est disponible depuis le 1er janvier 2021.

To access the Bibliothèque numérique Dalloz, please visit the Dalloz database from our French Law subject guide, here. Then, scroll down on the landing page and select either Ouvrages or, under “À feuilleter,” Dalloz Bibliothèque.

Law library services and resources during the pandemic

This blog post has been adapted from our recent From the Gelber columns in the Quid Novi.

Edit: this blog post was edited on October 26th, 2020, to include the reactivation of our article/ chapter scan service, and on November 26th, to update our study hub hours and add book return information.

While heading back to school in the middle of a pandemic certainly comes with its challenges, the library worked hard throughout the summer (and continues to work hard!) to try and make the transition to a remote environment a little easier. Here is a summary of key services and resources available to McGill Law faculty, staff, and students:

Electronic course reserves

Since we knew there would be no physical course reserves available in the library during the pandemic, we worked with professors and with legal publishers to try and ensure that the vast majority of required course readings would be available electronically for free through the library. This table summarises where you can try finding key texts through library resources:

PublisherDatabase
Carswell, Sweet & MaxwellWestlawNext, UK Legal (through OnePass)
EmondVitalsource (linked in catalogue)
Irwin LawCAIJ (DèsLibris)
LexisNexisLexis Advance Quicklaw
Wilson & LafleurCAIJ (eDoctrine)
Yvon BlaisLa référence

Additional electronic resources (SOQUIJ, CAIJ, Practical Law Canada + additional Thomson products)

Les étudiant.e.s et les membres de la Faculté de droit profitent des accès additionnels à quelques bases de données juridiques, notamment SOQUIJ, le CAIJ, et des produits Thomson Reuters, dont Practical Law Canada. Ceci dit, vous devez tout d’abord compléter un formulaire de consentement pour y avoir accès. Contactez la bibliothèque pour plus de détails.  

Library pickup service (to borrow physical library books)

Titles not available in electronic format can be borrowed via our library pickup service. Items are retrieved by our library assistants, put into paper bags and quarantined, and are then made available via a contactless pickup. Users will first need to locate the book in our catalogue, and take note of the call number. Details can be found here.

Interlibrary loan (including borrowing books checked out at McGill but available at another Quebec university)

Interlibrary loan (ILL) – the ability to borrow titles not available in McGill’s collection – is now available both for articles and physical books. Physical books will be made available via the library pickup. McGill users can put in an ILL request as usual through Colombo directly or via the ILL request link within the catalogue.  

In addition, if a user notices that the McGill copy of a physical text is currently checked out, we have no electronic version, and there is a physical copy of the same text available at another Quebec university library, the user can now make an interlibrary loan request to have the copy from another Quebec university library sent to McGill. Currently, this should be done through the regular ILL request. This is made possible through a new agreement with the other Quebec university libraries.

Article scan service

Depuis le 26 octobre 2020, notre service de repérage d’articles est de retour. Les demandes doivent se faire via le formulaire qui se trouve sur cette page. Tout document disponible en version numérique ne peut être demandé.

De plus, les étudiant.e.s qui ont activé leurs comptes CAIJ peuvent bénéficier de leur service de repérage documentaire pour les articles disponibles dans leur collection. Ce service est normalement payant (5 $ par document), mais compte tenu de la COVID, il est gratuit jusqu’à la fin mars 2021.

Study hub

Students looking for study space in the library can book a spot up to one hour in advance, via the library website. The Gelber is open Monday to Friday, from 9:00am-12:00pm and from 1:30pm-4:30pm. Note that no other library service will be available at the study hub other than access to the photocopiers/scanners/ printers and pick-ups of previously requested books.  

Book returns

Books can be returned to the book drop just inside the entrance at the Law Library Monday to Friday from 9:00am until 4:30pm. 

Books can be placed in the returns bin on the street level at the McLennan Library Building 3459 McTavish Street at any time. 

Virtual reference service

Questions? Concerns? Please contact Sonia (sonia.smith@mcgill.ca) or Katarina (katarina.daniels@mcgill.ca) directly. Simple questions can be sent by email, while conference calls can be arranged for more complex reference questions.

Two new databases and a new agreement with the CAIJ

The Nahum Gelber Law Library is proud to announce the launch of two new databases, Practical Law Canada and Lexis Practice Advisor, as well as the signing of an agreement between the CAIJ and McGill University, granting CAIJ memberships to students, librarians, support staff and professors of the McGill Faculty of Law.

Access to Practical Law Canada and membership to the CAIJ are restricted to the Faculty of Law only; a consent form, available at the circulation desk or by emailing law.library@mcgill.ca, must first be completed. Access to Lexis Practice Advisor is available to the entire McGill community.

Practical Law Canada

Practical Law Canada (PLC) is a research tool that provides a variety of practical resources to help lawyers get their work done more efficiently. Practice notes, which provide guidelines and explanations of current law and practice, precedents with detailed drafting notes, and checklists, timelines and flowcharts, are created and maintained by a team of expert lawyers, who ensure that their material reflects current practice. The practice areas covered are:

– Capital Markets & Securities
– Commercial Real Estate
– Commercial Transactions
– Competition
– Corporate and M&A
– Employment
– Finance
– Litigation (Corporate & Commercial)

In addition, PLC offers a provincial comparison tool, allowing users to compare laws and requirements in a particular area of law, across the country. Last, their product What’s Market allows you to easily analyse and compare terms or features across publicly filed deals.

Guides, video tutorials (in both languages) and interactive eLearning (English Only) are available here:  https://store1.thomsonreuters.ca/learning/practical-law-canada (Eng)  https://store1.thomsonreuters.ca/apprentissage/practical-law-canada (Fr). A training session in the library will be offered during the course of the semester.

Lexis Practice Advisor

Lexis Practice Advisor is another practitioner-oriented research tool. Similar to PLC, the platform also features practice notes, precedents with detailed drafting notes, checklists and flowcharts, as well as forms and articles, all maintained by a team of expert lawyers. The practice areas covered are:

– Capital Markets and M&A
– Commercial
– Corporate and Private M&A
– Employment
– Family Law (BC and Ontario only)
– Finance
– Insolvency & Restructuring
– In-House Counsel
– Intellectual Property & Technology
– Litigation & Dispute Resolution
– Personal Injury (BC and Ontario only)
– Wills, Trusts & Estates (BC and Ontario only)

While the content is primarily Canadian, some international, US, UK, and EU content is also available.

Training on Lexis Practice Advisor will be offered during the course of the semester.

CAIJ

Le CAIJ met à votre disposition des ressources couvrant l’ensemble des champs de la pratique juridique. Vous retrouverez notamment du contenu et des outils afin d’appuyer vos études et recherches, notamment :

– Jurisprudence québécoise et canadienne.
– Lois des juridictions canadiennes.
– De la doctrine à valeur ajoutée et développée au CAIJ, telle que :

*une banque de question de recherche documentées (TOPO) comprenant plus de 5000 questions pour vous aider à commencer une recherche;
*des dossiers spéciaux sur des sujets d’actualité qui rassemblent toute l’information pertinente pouvant vous aiguiller dans vos recherches
*plus de 100 lois annotées pancanadiennes incluant les annotations d’ouvrages comme les AlterEgo de Wilson & Lafleur, le Code civil annoté de Baudouin-Renaud, etc.
*un accès exclusif à la Collection de droit de l’École du Barreau.

– Des banques de données accessibles à distance telles que : dèsLibris (Irwin Law’s e-library), LexBase, et bien plus encore.

Bénéficiez également du soutien personnalisé d’une équipe de recherchistes-formateurs qualifiés pour vous accompagner dans vos recherches en mode clavardage, de 8 h à 20 h du lundi au jeudi et de 8 h à 17 h le vendredi.

Finalement, Mon CAIJ, l’espace de travail personnalisé et confidentiel, vous offre des fonctionnalités adaptées à votre pratique, notamment :

– Sauvegarde de vos requêtes de recherche, de sources et d’archivage
– Alertes personnalisées associées à vos requêtes
– Prêt, réservation et/ou livraison de documents (des frais peuvent s’appliquer)

Une formation sur les outils du CAIJ sera offert à la bibliothèque le 27 janvier 2020. Inscrivez-vous dès maintenant.

All databases are accessible directly from the Law Subject Guide. If you have any questions regarding these new products, please contact us at law.library@mcgill.ca.

Our library’s first escape room – are you up to the challenge?

Gamification is a hot trend in libraries these days, particularly when it comes to teaching information literacy. It is no stranger in the teaching of legal research either – legal scavenger hunts have long been a favourite way for librarians and professors to introduce students to a variety of legal resources.

Over the summer, after learning about escape rooms in libraries, I decided that I wanted to build my own escape room for McGill Law students as a way of promoting the library while teaching legal research. Between codal provisions in Quebec civil law and the detailed rules laid out in the McGill Guide, I had a feeling that I could build the ultimate escape room for our students with locks and puzzles galore. A quick poll on social media suggested that students were a fan of the idea.

Soon after I drafted my scenario, I was approached by the McGill Law Journal‘s executive editors, who were looking for a fun way to test and improve their editors’ research skills. After sharing my escape room plan, we decided to put my theory to the test. I came up with a series of questions that tested the main skills the journal wanted to focus on, and integrated them into our scenario.

The scenario: You are a co-author of a research paper that needs to be submitted to the MLJ by the end of the month. The publication is time-sensitive, as a competing research team is set to publish in the coming weeks. Your co-author, who has the most recent version of the article, has died in a tragic accident (he was in fact, eaten by a polar bear while on vacation in Manitoba). Thankfully, you know that your co-author kept a USB key with the latest version of the paper somewhere in his office. You need to recover the USB key to continue working on the paper and submit in time. (Click here to read the entire scenario, made bilingual thanks to the translation work of Guillaume Lebrun-Petel of the MLJ.)

What to expect: The game includes 14 problems, though you do not have to solve all 14 to “escape”. They deal primarily with citation rules, international and foreign law research, and legislative research. Search throughout the room – including through Professor Leresponsable’s laptop and personal email – for clues.

How they did: Four groups of three-to-five students were given 35 minutes to escape, and hints were provided along the way. While ultimately none of the groups made it out, a lot of fun was had by all! The closest team was just two questions away from finding the USB!

Are you ready for your turn? That’s right – the escape room is now open to the rest of the Faculty! The game will run 9 more times between September 23rd-October 3rd in room 4020 (see updated escape room schedule here). Sign up as a team* of 3-5 individuals and put your legal research skills to the test! Students and professors alike are invited to participate! A small prize will be awarded to the team that manages to escape in the fastest time. Contact katarina.daniels@mcgill.ca to register.

*you are free to sign up individually, but you will be added to a team.

LégisQuébec – The (In)completeness of an Official Consolidated Law

Earlier this week, a patron called the library asking about the publication procedure for Quebec legislation. He wanted to know whether the consolidated statutes and regulations published by Publications Québec on LégisQuébec were actually consolidated and up to date, and included any amendments soon to come into force. Specifically, he was seeing some inconsistencies with the Consumer Protection Act.

My initial response was affirmative – after all, the consolidated legislation on LégisQuébec includes an update date and has official status. If a bill amending the legislation had been passed prior to the update date, it would be reasonable to expect that the amendments had been integrated somehow into the official consolidated version.

This expectation was reinforced in me in particular as a result of my experience regularly seeing gray boxes with the amended provisions and coming into force information integrated throughout official consolidated legislation.

Consequently, I believed it was in error that the new section 119.1 of the Consumer Protection Act, introduced via section 27 of Bill 134 and set to come into force on August 1st, 2019 (order in council 987-2018), was excluded from the official, consolidated Consumer Protection Act. To that end, I sent an email to Publications Québec, asking them if this was an unintentional error.

Publication Québec’s Approach to Consolidating Laws

The next morning, I received a phone call from a representative of Publications Québec informing me that there was no error on their part. Rather, the absence of 119.1 from the consolidated act was the result of an editorial decision taken by Publications Québec years ago (and which was too complicated to explain in writing, and better explained verbally).

In sum, I was told that despite the signs that led me to believe that the consolidated legislation published on LégisQuébec does integrate amending legislation not yet in force, in fact, Publications Québec does not integrate all amendments brought in by a new law. This is true even if an order in council has been published in the Gazette officielle du Québec proclaiming the coming into force of the various provisions of the amending law. Confusingly, Publications Québec only integrate SOME amendments.

According to the representative from Publications Québec, an amendment will only appear in a gray box if it modifies a provision currently in force and its coming into force date has been published; anything that is entirely new law will not appear in the consolidated law until it actually comes into force. The justification for this editorial decision? (1) To reduce the number of gray boxes that appear throughout the consolidated legislation and improve the readability of legislation. (2) To minimize the risk of integrating amending provisions that would end up never coming into force.

Implications of Publications Québec’s Editorial Decision

According to the representative from Publications Québec, there is no plan to change their editorial process. What this means concretely, is that:

  • When you are looking at a piece of legislation on LégisQuébec, you can never know for sure if tomorrow, that piece of legislation will look entirely different.
  • When you are looking at a piece of legislation on LégisQuébec and you see gray boxes with coming-into-force information, you should not assume that it gives you a complete picture of the law soon to come into force.
  • In order to obtain a complete picture of a law or to be sure that the piece of legislation you are looking at has not been modified by a law soon to come into force, you will have to:
    1. Search for a modifying bill;
    2. Confirm it has received royal assent;
    3. Search Part 2 of the Gazette Officielle du Québec for coming into force information; and
    4. Consolidate, either manually or by using a consolidating tool like this one.

Legal (Library) Tech

Legal technology has never been more in the spotlight than it is now. In 2018, investments in legal technology companies reached US $1 billion. Then, just days into the new year, a new $200 million investment was announced in a single legal tech company, signaling yet another record year for legal tech. Once a field associated with just a handful of “pioneering” legal databases, legal tech is now a glamorous, trendy alternative legal path attracting the best and brightest law students.

So What is Legal Tech, and Why is it Relevant to Libraries?

Legal tech has been defined in a number of texts – academic and nonacademic – with no clear consensus to be found. Definitions range from the extremely narrow to the unhelpfully broad, from the practical to the theoretical. The definition that I like best comes from lawyer Christian Lang, who defines legal tech as “(1) the technology that helps facilitate the practice of law for lawyers and (2) the technology that helps consumers access legal expertise or access justice.” While in some cases technologies may benefit both user groups, so far, the vast majority of legal tech targets one or the other group.

Law librarians in academic, government, courthouse and private law libraries should be paying attention to legal technologies because they are changing the practice of law and giving law librarians greater opportunities to implicate ourselves in the delivery of legal services. In particular, legal tech has been changing the nature of the game when it comes to legal research, document drafting, document management (including contract management, IP management, and eDiscovery), and document review. While law librarians have historically only played a role in the first item listed, increasingly, we are being tasked with knowledge management and project management of legal tech initiatives in other areas of legal service.

Librarians who work in public libraries may also want to follow legal tech companies. With the well-documented problems involving access to justice, citizens often turn to public libraries for assistance related to legal matters. Public library librarians should be aware of the different legal technologies that exist and which may help users with legal problems.

Law and Technology and Applied Innovation

In February of this year, I was given the opportunity to develop and teach an intensive legal tech workshop at McGill’s Faculty of Law. The course, entitled “Law and Technology and Applied Innovation,” was one of six optional courses offered during the Faculty’s Winter Focus Week. My instructions were simply to design the course “in a way that offers more than the usual classroom format”. It was suggested that “the focus be more on hands-on student engagement with exercises designed around real-world challenges”.

Leveraging my role as liaison librarian at the Nahum Gelber Law Library, I contacted select legal research technology companies, asking for demos and access to their platforms. Canadian-founded ROSS Intelligence and Blue J Legal, along with American-based Casetext, answered my call. All three leverage the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in different ways, turning the legal research process on its head. Despite their relative unknown status across the majority of Canadian law schools, I knew that they were key players in the market: ROSS Intelligence already counts the largest global law firms among their clients, Blue J Legal counts the largest Canadian law firms and accounting firms as their clients, while Casetext counts over 35 Am Law Firms among their clients.

Students used the tools to attempt to solve legal questions, and were impressed at just how different the research process looked using these tools. Both ROSS Intelligence, which leverages the power of IBM Watson, as well as Casetext allow for natural language searches as alternatives to traditional Boolean searches, allowing users to ask legal research questions in their own words. Both platforms also allow users to narrow their search results by motion or by a particular set of facts. While ROSS Intelligence requires a user to type in this factual context, Casetext allows users to upload a document that gives context to the search; their AI-powered search engine CARA then reads the document to gain an understanding of the factual scenario, and ranks results that share this contextual background higher in the list of search results. As a competing feature, ROSS Intelligence highlights cases with a “deep match” (where the system is fairly confident the answer to your legal question can be found in that decision) or a “fact match” (cases that share a similar set of facts and deal with the same or similar legal issue). ROSS even provides custom, AI-generated answers to your question through the “generate overview” feature, pulling key sentences from the decision and developing a coherent answer to your legal question in a matter of seconds. In addition, both tools also provide a “find similar language” feature across their content, allowing users to easily find additional authorities on a point of law. Last, both offer document analysis, allowing users to import legal briefs, which the AI reads to verify the treatment of cited cases, ensuring that you or opposing counsel are not citing bad law.

Blue J Legal’s research tools, Tax Foresight, Employment Foresight and HR Foresight, by contrast, are not designed with the traditional search engine format. Rather, they are built modularly to answer specific questions, with predictive AI at their core. Users select a specific legal issue, and use one of three tools available to assist with their research: a classifier, which, after a user completes a brief questionnaire, predicts how a court would rule in a particular matter; a case finder, which retrieves cases sharing a similar fact pattern; or a navigator, which is essentially a built-out decision-tree. A machine-learning built memorandum is also produced following the use of the classifier, justifying the prediction based on the facts of the file. Unlike the other two tools, Blue J Legal uses human (lawyer)-powered tagging to avoid errors in the dataset, and will only produce a classifier if it can predict future decisions with at least 90 per cent accuracy.

Access to Justice, Changes in the Legal Profession

Interacting with these and other tools, students were invited to consider how legal tech is changing the way law is being practiced, and how technology might prove to be useful tools in increasing access to justice.

Increased efficiency and decreased research costs were recognized as significant benefits, which could translate into increased access to the legal system. However, concerns were raised about the quality of research results using an AI-search, particularly at this early stage in the development of AI research tools. The risk of a two-tiered legal system, whereby people who could not afford lawyer fees would put all their trust in the research capabilities of – essentially – a robot, potentially putting them at a disadvantage compared to individuals who can afford to pay lawyer fees, was also raised.

While students were excited about just how streamlined the research process could be, they were also concerned about loss of essential research skills among a new generation of lawyers. In particular, these research tools are all geared towards finding “the needle in the haystack,” arguably eliminating the need for lawyers to first gain an understanding about the area of law in which they are working.

Last, privacy concerns were mentioned, particularly with regards to tools like Casetext’s CARA, where documents containing sensitive information. As document analyzers become more common in AI research tools, privacy concerns will necessarily rise.

As legal tech continues to change the way law is practiced, law libraries will necessarily need to adapt. The Nahum Gelber Law Library is continuously on the lookout for new, innovative legal research tools, and is scanning the legal market to see what is being used by practicing lawyers, all to ensure that our students have the right tools to prepare them for life after law school.

Interested in legal tech and its implications? Click here to read some of the blog posts written by McGill Law students for the Law and Technology and Applied Innovation course, which were published by the Blogue du CRL of the Young Bar of Montreal.

 

New Database: Oxford International Organizations

Oxford International Organizations is first database for analyzing and understanding key documents of international organizations. Each document is accompanied by a concise expert commentary. In order to capture the full bearing of international organizations on various substantive areas of international law as well as on the field of international institutional law in particular, the database includes, but is not limited to, resolutions and decisions of organizations, draft normative texts prepared within the framework of organizations, and constituent instruments of organizations. It also contains court decisions relevant for the institutional law of organizations as well as, occasionally, a treaty to which an organization is a party, where this brings light to issues of institutional law. In this resource the term “international organization” is understood as an intergovernmental organization established between states or other international legal actors by a treaty or other instrument possessing at least some permanence of structure, thus excluding NGOs from its scope.

New HeinOnline Collections

As of now, the library offers McGill community the access to five new HeinOnline collections:

  • Immigration Law & Policy in the U.S., a monumental collection, a compilation of the most important historical documents and legislation related to immigration in the United States as well as current hearings, debates and recent developments in immigration law. This first comprehensive database includes BIA Precedent Decisions, legislative histories, law and policy titles, extradition titles, scholarly articles, an extensive bibliography, and other related works.
  • Animal Studies: Law, Welfare and Rights includes titles from the Animal Legal Defense Fund and Animal Welfare Institute and aims to establish the foundational laws pertaining to animals and follow the evolution of these rights throughout the years. It includes philosophical books dating back to the 1800s, videos, periodicals, brochures, and more.
  • Law in Eastern Europe, a collection of books, published by Brill, of more than 60 titles that showcases the development, enactment, and impact of the rule of law in Eastern Europe.
  • Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law Publications: more than 60 publications from this prestigious school, such as the 22-volume set, A Bibliography on Foreign and Comparative Law. Book and Articles in English by Charles Szladits, along with An Introduction to the Legal System of the United States by E. Allan Farnsworth, among various others.
  • Religion and the Law, hundreds of unique titles and nearly one million pages, including books, periodicals, and bibliographies. This collection provides a research platform for the development, history, organization, and fundamental principles of various world religions. The collection also includes the Christian Legal Society publications, an assortment of Canon Law, and rare historical bibles.

We hope you will find them relevant and useful for your teaching, research, and writing.