Selecting and Acquiring Legal Resources

• Author: Ted Tjaden
• Profession: National Director of Knowledge Management McMillan LLP
• Pages: 287-299

287

CHAP TER 9

SELECTING AND

ACQUIRING LEGAL

RESOURCES

A. I NTRODUC TION

This book has focused on how to use legal re sources. For some legal

researchers, this will suff‌ice since the focus of their work is hands-on

legal research. Other law yers or legal researchers, however, will need

to choose or recommend for acquisition particular legal resources for a

law library, be it as part of a small law f‌irm or personal collection or as

part of a larger organization. Very little has been written in the litera-

ture on how to acquire legal resources.1 While it helps to have a good

working knowledge of legal resources when deciding what to select or

acquire, there are certain things that many lawyers or legal research-

ers may not be aware of on this topic, matters that often fall within the

expertise of a law librarian. Therefore, this chapter is aimed at lawyers

or other legal researchers who need to make decisions about selecting

and acquiring legal res ources. Information is provided on the following

topics:

deciding between print and electronic resourcesUÊ

criteria for selecting material for a law libraryUÊ

managing a small law f‌irm law libraryUÊ

1 See, for example, Dougl ass MacEllven et al., Legal Research Handbook, 5t h ed.

(Markham, ON: Lex isNexis Butterwort hs, 2003) c. 16, “Law Firm Libraries,”

and the resourc es listed at the end of this ch apter.