Glossary

• Author: Ted Tjaden
• Profession: National Director of Knowledge Management McMillan LLP
• Pages: 395-404

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[Words in boldface within the definitions are defined elsewhere in the Glossary]

Abridgment: In legal literature, a summary or digest of a court case. Many publishers provide compilations of these summaries or digests organized by topic or theme. A well-known case law digest in Canada is Carswell’s Canadian Abridgment, available in print, on CD-ROM, and on Westlaw Canada (by subscription). It has summaries of Canadian court decisions, organized by topic. LEXISNEXIS Quicklaw has an online digest service in its Canada Digests database. See Chapter 2, Section E for more information on abridgments.

Bill: A draft piece of legislation introduced in the applicable legislature. Most often, it is the ruling party that introduces draft legislation, but members of the opposition can also introduce bills; however, opposition bills generally do not pass the requisite three readings needed to become law if they are too controversial. Bills can be public (if they are of general application) or private (if they only affect one organization or entity). A bill must pass all three readings and come into force prior to the proroguing of the legislature to become law. See also Prorogued.

Blog: Shorthand for "weblog," a website containing posts or entries on particular topics. Entries are usually displayed in reverse chronological order and allow comments to be added to each post. The Canadian Law Blogs List (www.lawblogs.ca) lists hundreds of Canadian law-related blogs.

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Bluebook: The colloquial name of the legal citation guide used in the United States. Its formal name is The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (published by the Harvard Law Review Association and revised regularly).

Boolean operators: Search commands used by Internet search engines and commercial online legal databases to allow the researcher to combine keywords. The typical Boolean operators are AND, OR, and NOT. Some search engines also allow the NEAR command (such as "wiretap NEAR unauthorized") or proximity searches, typically using the "within" command placing the words "within" so many words of each other ("wiretap /3 unauthorized"). Check the "search tips" provided with most search engines to create more precise search strategies.

Canadian Legal Information Institute (CANLII): A free online database containing legislation and case law for all Canadian jurisdictions (www.canlii.org). Similar Legal Information Institutes are available for other countries, including Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Case comments: Structured "critiques" or comments on recent cases of significance. They are discussed in detail in Chapter 12, Section D.

Catchwords: Legal publishers sometimes add headnotes or summaries of facts and law to court cases that they publish. Above the headnote and usually after the style of cause (the names of the parties to the lawsuit), the publisher may add "catchwords" (often in italics) that are the keywords by which the publisher has "tagged" or identified a particular case. Browsing through the catchwords can be a quick way of getting an idea of the relevancy of the case.

C.I.F. or CIF: In legal research parlance, C.I.F. stands for "coming into force" and is used by Queen’s Printers to indicate in a Table of Public Statutes when an amendment to the statute comes into force. Example from the Statutes of Canada Table of Public Statutes: CIF, 1995, c. 45 in force 01.03.96 see SI/96-23. The foregoing example tells the reader that Chapter 45 of the 1995 Statutes of Canada is in force on 1 March 1996, as per a government order registered as SI/96-23 (which can be found in the Canada Gazette Part II).

Citation, legal: Most people do not like legal citation, but it is important. It refers to the numerous technical rules for citing cases, legislation, and other law-related materials. Some of these rules can be memorized; most of them must be checked by consulting the MCGILL Guide, the standard legal citation guide in Canada, more formally known as the

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Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation. See also Bluebook, MCGILL Guide, and Neutral citation.

Competent lawyer: The Law Society of Upper Canada, in its Rules of Professional Conduct (discussed in Chapter 1, Section A(1)) recognize that legal research and writing are fundamental skills of a competent lawyer.

Cookies: In Internet vocabulary, cookies are strings of computer-level information communicated between your Web browser and the web-site you are visiting, assuming you have "enabled" your browser to accept cookies. If your Web browser is so enabled, your computer will store information in a document called "cookies.txt" about the sites you have visited. When you next visit the same sites, information from your "cookies.txt" file will be used to help identify you and your preferences to the site you are visiting. Cookies are discussed in more detail in Chapter 5, Section O.

Defendant: The person being sued by the plaintiff in a civil lawsuit. In the style of cause Smith v. Jones, one can assume that Jones is the defendant being sued by Smith (but this is not necessarily always the case since Smith could have originally been a defendant, and if Smith lost at trial and there was an appeal decision, the appellant in some jurisdictions is sometimes the first named party in the style of cause).

Dictionaries, legal: Provide simple definitions of law-related words, including more difficult legal or Latin...