Guide: Table of Contents / Introduction / Canadian Primary Resources / Canadian Secondary Resources
Canadian Legal Organizations / Canadian Legal Publishers / Research by Topic
This section of Doing Legal Research in Canada provides information on the following law-related organizations:
- Canadian law libraries and library catalogs
- Canadian law library organizations
- Canadian law schools
- Canadian law societies and bar associations
- Canadian law firms
- Canadian law-related organizations (miscellaneous)
1. Canadian Law Libraries and Library Catalogs
Set out below is a list in geographic order from west to east of Canadian academic and courthouse libraries that have websites. Included in the list are links to each library’s online catalog (or to the campus-wide catalog where the particular law library does not have its own separate catalog and instead shares the campus catalog). For additional Canadian library catalogs, see the Canadian Library Gateway from Library and Archives Canada. The University of Calgary Law Library has an extensive page of links to law libraries and their catalogs.
2. Canadian Law Library Organizations
The national law library organization in Canada is the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL). Its website has extensive information on membership and activities of the organization, including its always popular annual meeting.
Several major cities in Canada have local law library organizations, such as the Vancouver Association of Law Libraries, Toronto Association of Law Libraries (TALL), the Montreal Association of Law Libraries, and the Edmonton Law Libraries Association (ELLA).
Both CALL and TALL have relatively active discussion groups or listservs. Information on how to subscribe to either of these listservs can be found below. In addition, messages posted to the CALL-L listserv are archived and can be searched by members only by linking to the CALL-L Archives.
To subscribe to CALL-L: send the following e-mail message to [email protected]
subscribe CALL-L Your Name
To subscribe to TALL-L: send the following message to [email protected]
subscribe t-lawlib-l firstname lastname
3. Canadian Law Schools
Set out below is a list of Canadian law schools. In Canada, law school is a three-year program usually entered after completion of an undergraduate degree and a strong test result on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). Upon graduation, the student will receive an LL.B. law degree (although the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law has recently changed the name of its law degree to “J.D.” or Juris Doctor, similar to the American practice). However, this degree by itself is not sufficient to practice law. To practice law, the law school graduate must then article in the province in which he or she wishes to work. Although articling requirements vary slightly from province to province, it is generally a one-year form of apprenticeship, combined with the need to successfully pass the applicable provincial bar exam. Articling requirements will be explained in more detail on the home pages of the Canadian law societies, discussed below. The Council of Canadian Law Deans website also has a list of Canadian law schools.
Canadian Law Schools (from West to East)
- University of Victoria
- University of British Columbia
- University of Alberta
- University of Calgary
- University of Saskatchewan
- University of Manitoba
- University of Western Ontario
- University of Windsor
- Osgoode Hall Law School
- University of Toronto
- Queen’s University
- Carlton University
- University of Ottawa, Common Law
- University of Ottawa, Civil Law
- McGill University
- l’Université de Montreal
- l’Université de Sherbrooke
- l’Université Laval
- l’Université du Québec à Montréal
- University of Moncton
- University of New Brunswick
- Dalhousie Law School
4. Canadian Law Societies and Bar Associations
Lawyers in Canada are regulated by the provincial law society of which they are a member. Thus, for a lawyer in Canada to practice law, he or she must be admitted to a provincial law society as a barrister and solicitor (although Canada does not have a divided bar – lawyers in Canada are both barrister and solicitors and may practice as both a court lawyer and a solicitor or may specialize in one or the other).
Set out below are links to those Canadian law societies or bar associations that have websites:
- Federation of the Law Societies of Canada: The Federation of Law Societies of Canada is the umbrella organization of the thirteen governing bodies of the legal profession in Canada. This site provides news regarding activities at each of the provincial law societies. There is also a page giving a list of addresses and e-mails for each of the Canadian law societies
- Canadian Bar Association: According to its website, the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) has a mandate to:
- Improve the administration of justice;
- Improve and promote the knowledge, skills, ethical standards and well-being of members of the legal profession;
- Represent the legal profession on a national and international level;
- Promote the interests of the members of the CBA; and
- Promote equality in the profession.
Membership is the CBA is not yet mandatory (there is some discussion brewing on mandatory membership). About two-thirds of Canadian lawyers and articling students are members of the CBA. There are a number of useful online CBA publications and other documents. There are provincial branches of the CBA that are active in providing continuing legal education to its members.
- Provincial law societies: Set out below is a list of links to those Canadian law societies that have websites. These websites often have useful information for legal researchers, including rules of professional conduct, statistics and other practice requirements and news alerts to members.
- Law Society of Alberta
- Law Society of British Columbia
- Law Society of Saskatchewan
- Law Society of Manitoba
- Law Society of New Brunswick
- Law Society of Upper Canada (Ontario)
- Barreau du Québec, Chambre des notaires du Québec
- Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society
- Law Society of Prince Edward Island
- Law Society of Newfoundland
- Law Society of the North West Territories
- Law Society of Yukon
- Law Society of the North West Territories
- Law Society of Nunavut
- Trial lawyers associations: There are a number of (voluntary) trial lawyers associations in Canada, listed below, that provide training for members and advocate improvements to the justice system:
- Indigenous Bar Association (IBA): According to its website, the IBA is “a non-profit professional organization for Aboriginal persons in the legal field. Its membership consist of legally trained persons who are lawyers, judges, law professors, legal consultants and law students.” The website contains information about the IBA and links relevant to Aboriginal legal researchers.
5. Canadian Law Firms
Many Canadian law firms have websites. Some of these sites are a valuable source of information where lawyers at the firm have published law-related articles on their websites. Unfortunately, Canadian law firm websites are not well indexed on the Internet, so it is difficult to find one comprehensive list. Set out below, therefore, are two ways of finding Canadian law firms: (i) using existing “meta” lists of law firms, or (ii) browsing through a select list of some of the larger Canadian law firms (the head office of the firm is indicated in parentheses after the firm name; some of the larger firms have offices or affiliations across Canada):
- “Meta” lists of Canadian law firms:
- Select list of larger Canadian law firms
- Aird Berlis (Toronto)
- Alexander Holburn Beaudin & Lang (Vancouver)
- Bennett Jones (Calgary)
- Bereskin & Parr (Toronto)
- Blaney McMurtry (Toronto)
- Borden Ladner Gervais (Toronto)
- Cassels Brock & Blackwell (Toronto)
- Clark Wilson (Vancouver)
- Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg (Toronto)
- Fasken Martineau DuMoulin (Toronto)
- Fraser Milner Casgrain (Montreal)
- Gowlings(Toronto)
- Heenan Blaikie (Toronto)
- Lawson Lundell (Vancouver)
- Leger Robic Richard (Montreal)
- Lerners (London, Ontario)
- McCarthy Tetrault (Toronto)
- McMillan Binch Mendelsohn (Toronto)
- Miller Thomson (Toronto)
- Ogilvy Renault (Montreal)
- Osler Hoskin & Harcourt (Toronto)
- Owen Bird (Vancouver)
- Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall (Ottawa)
- Pushor Mitchell (Kelowna, B.C.)
- Richards Buell Sutton (Vancouver, B.C.)
- Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales (Atlantic Canada)
- Stikeman Elliott (Toronto)
- Torys (Toronto)
- Weir Foulds (Toronto)
6. Canadian law-related organizations (miscellaneous)
Set out below is a list of a variety of Canadian law-related organizations:
- ACJNet-Access to Justice Network
- Alberta Law Reform Institute
- British Columbia Law Institute
- Canadian Association of Law Teachers
- Canadian Association of Provincial Court Judges
- Canadian Centre for Occupational Health & Safety
- Canadian Judicial Council
- Canadian Tax Foundation
- Center for Public Law Research (University of Montreal)
- Continuing Legal Education Society of B.C.
- Financial Services Commission of Ontario
- Insurance Canada
- Jurist Canada
- Lawyers’ Professional Indemnity Company (LPIC)
- Uniform Law Conference of Canada
- West Coast Environmental Law Association
© 2000-2004 Ted Tjaden. Users may browse, download, print and link to this “Doing Legal Research in Canada Guide” for any non-commercial use or for educational use.