Legal Research for the Public Researcher

Reputable open-access resources, like CanLII, are helpful sources of legal information. However, not everything is available online since some legal information is only available in print. You may need to use both print and online sources for your research.

Locating secondary sources (commentary) is the first step in legal research. Secondary sources are books and other sources which help explain and locate the law. Written by legal experts, secondary sources provide an overview of the law and point to relevant primary sources of law, like cases, statutes, and regulations. 

Secondary sources include legal encyclopedias, textbooks or treatises, journal articles, legal dictionaries, government reports, legal education materials and seminar papers. Get an understanding of your topic by starting with a legal encyclopedia or textbook, and then move onto journal articles.

Consult our research guides to find secondary sources for your topic. Learn more about commentary in Chapter 3 of The Canadian Legal Research and Writing Guide.

Primary sources include cases (sometimes called decisions, judgments, or jurisprudence) and legislation (like statutes and regulations). To save time, start with secondary sources so you can identify which legislation and cases are relevant to your problem.

You can find most current and some previous versions of Canadian legislation online through government websites.

Many important and recent Canadian cases are freely accessible online on CanLII. Other considerations: 

• More than one statute or regulation may apply to your problem
• Federal and provincial statutes may address the same area of law (e.g., health law); use secondary sources to identify them
• Statutes are continually revised; check back to make sure information is current
• Cases can affect the interpretation of statutes

After locating cases and legislation, you must determine if they are still “good law”, a process known as “Noting Up”. Learn about the importance of noting up in Chapters 11.1-11.2 of The Canadian Legal Research and Writing Guide.

Our library does not keep or retrieve court documents associated with specific cases. To obtain court documents from a case, you must contact the courthouse where the case was heard.

Some courts like the Supreme Court of Canada publish some court documents on their website. Some courts have guides on accessing court documents. For example, see the Government of Ontario’s guide to Access court files, documents and exhibits.

If possible, try to gather key details about the case before contacting the courthouse: 

• Party names (name of plaintiffs and defendants, accused)
• Names of the judge
• Name and location of the court
• Any hearing dates and decision dates
• File number or docket information