LAW - Starting Points - Beginning Your Canadian Legal Research
Cases
A case is a decision made by a court or a board or tribunal. Released cases are made available by courts, boards and tribunals to be published in case reports. Not every case gets published (reported) so not every case is searchable. In Alberta unpublished court cases may be found by contacting the Clerk of the Court for a transcript, if available. There will be a charge for this.
Published (reported) cases may be located by topic, case name or citation. Citations may be found in books or articles. Reported cases can be located on legal databases using their citation. Case judgements may also be published directly by the court or tribunal where the decision was made.
For links to further resources for finding Canadian cases, visit the research guide Canadian Cases and Decisions. That guide is provides links to sources for Canadian Federal as well as Alberta and the other provinces and territories case law. Legal databases may be restricted to University of Calgary users or to Faculty of Law users.
Caselaw Databases
Search for cases on a topic or legal issue by doing a keyword search, similar to searching on an internet search engine, in any of the databases below. You can limit the search to a particular province, jurisdiction or court.
If you know the name of the case or have the case's citation from a book, article or website, you can use that information as your search terms. For help understanding citations and information about citing cases please go to the Legal Citation tab.
There are several electronic databases with links to case reports:
- CanLIICanadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) is a free online resource, containing cases from all Canadian jurisdictions and several administrative boards and tribunals. Coverage varies between courts
- Westlaw Canada(U of C access only) Contains full-text of court cases from all Canadian jurisdictions, as well as decisions from many administrative boards and tribunals. Coverage varies between courts.Westlaw includes nearly 15,000 databases and over 700 full text law reviews.
- Canadian Human Rights Reporter(U of C access only) CHRR Online contains reported and unreported human rights decisions.
- Lexis Advance Quicklaw This link opens in a new windowAvailable to Faculty of Law students only (Password access only)Lexis Advances Quicklaw provides access to an extensive database of over 2 million cases, jurisdictional sources, including exclusive sources like Halsbury's Laws of Canada and Canadian Tort Law. This database includes QuickCite, which ensures decisions are based on good authority by cases. Lexis Advance QuickLaw provides access to Canadian law (legislation, jurisprudence, and doctrine) as well as law sources from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong.
Searching in print for cases
Once you have the title of the case reporter, search for it in the library catalogue to determine availability and location. Law report series may be available in print or electronically. Print case reporters are located on the law library 1st floor. They include all general and many topical reporters for Canada, as well as some international and foreign reporters too.
- Last Updated: Sep 3, 2024 2:44 PM
- URL: https://libguides.ucalgary.ca/guides/lawstartingpoints
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