What's a Governor General?

Well, my plea for "questions for Canada" yesterday resulted in only one question, but it is a doozy! Jim Milles has asked me to explain what a "Governor General" is. Well, do you want the short answer or the long answer? Here goes:

Back in 1776 the U.S. (as you may or may not recall, depending upon how old you are) signed the Declaration of Independence, making it independent from England. Well, Canada never really did that. Lots of things have happened since 1776, but we have always remained part of the Commonwealth, the former British Empire. For better or worse, the Queen of England is still our Queen.

The Governor General is the Queen's representative in Canada. It is the oldest and highest public office in Canada, even above the Prime Minister. Within the provinces, there is a Lieutenant Governor representing the Queen (in Canada we pronounce it "lef-tenant" rather than "loo-tenant". I have no idea why). When our legislation refers to the "Governor in Council" it is referring to one of these two offices. It is largely considered a figure-head position, but specific roles are set out. From the G.G.'s website:

What is the Governor General's position in Government?
Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy. This means Canadians recognize The Queen as our Head of State. Canada's Governor General carries out Her Majesty's duties in Canada on a daily basis and is Canada's de facto Head of State. Like many other democracies, Canada has clearly defined the difference between the Head of State and Head of Government.

The Governor General
represents The Queen who is the Head of State is appointed by The Queen on the advice of Canada’s Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister
is the Head of Government
is the leader of the party with the most support in Parliament

What does the Governor General do?
The Governor General's role is built on four major themes:

Representing the Crown in Canada
Representing Canadians and Promoting our Sovereignty
Celebrating Excellence
Bringing Canadians together

When our Bills have been through the whole legislative process, the final step towards their becoming law is to have them receive "Royal Assent" which means they are assented to by the Governor in Council on behalf of the Queen. Again, this is pretty much a rubber stamp. Only once in my career have I seen any legislation tied up at this point, and that was mostly because of timing issues than an unwillingness to pass the law.

You may have heard of the Governor General being in the news the last couple of years. Our most recent G.G., Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, a former journalist and television personality, garnered criticism for high levels of spending and expensive state visits abroad. She did manage to revitalize an old, outdated office, bringing it to the foreground and helping to promote Canada, however. Her husband, John Ralston Saul, is a well-known author in his own right. He was considered the Viceregal Consort while Clarkson was G.G.

This past week she was replaced by our 27th Governor General, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean. Her selection has been controversial in that she was perceived as being somewhat of a Quebec separatist supporter which is diametrically opposed to the Crown. There was some outcry in the media, which you may have seen.

Both Clarkson and Jean are interesting choices for this role as they were born outside of Canada, are women of colour, and were prominent journalists. It is hoped that Jean will bring a youthful vitality to the role, and give Quebec citizens a closer tie to the rest of Canada (always a challenge).

Within Canada we see people both strongly supporting or strongly objecting to the role of the Monarchy in Canada. For the most part, however, people are indifferent. Except, perhaps, when the Governor General is seen as overstepping her spending limits. If nothing else, it is certainly one way that Canadian government is distinguished from the American.

Survivor: Law Library

This week on Survivor: Law Library, our two teams "Paperbound" and "Electronica" battle it out for space in the Law Library budget. Who will win, and who will be sent packing?

Just like everyone else, Canadian law libraries are struggling with the balance of formats. Do we keep both paper and electronic? Do we favour one over the other or, moreover, get rid of one altogether?

The biggest struggle right now is, not surprisingly, with case law reporters. From a librarian's viewpoint, case law is the perfect type of text to store in electronic format: they are voluminous, published in a somewhat random order, and need to be accessed frequently and quickly for research and books of authority for court. "Electronica" will surely win this challenge hands-down!

However, while some law firms, especially small firms or firms with a corporate focus, have been able to give up paper case law, others are still very much wed to paper. Many litigation lawyers still distrust printouts from online subscription services such as Quicklaw, Lexis or WestlaweCarswell (Thomson's version of Westlaw in Canada). They indicate a preference for the edited text in published reporters, a need to cite to specific page numbers, and especially a fear of what judges will think when presented with something from an electronic source. I've even heard it to be considered "lazy" if electronic case law is presented with research (although no one has used that term to my face).

There has been an immunity challenge. All publishers, whether producing electronic or paper case law, now use paragraph numbering so that citation in one source is equivalent to that in another source. See the Canadian Guide to the Uniform Preparation of Judgment from the Canadian Citation Committee, adopted in September 2002. As well, courts took the important step of adopting a "neutral" citation policy, giving the same citation to cases no matter the format. See A Neutral Citation Standard for Case Law adopted in 1999. Still, these efforts have not seemed to get anyone closer to winning the challenge. Where's Jeff Probst when you need him to call a winner?

The problem has been that a neutral citation does not tell one where something is located, and as a result few people are using it. Private practitioners are outright puzzled when they come across a neutral citation. Except for research lawyers and librarians "in the know", few people recognize a neutral citation when it hits them over the head. So, chalk another one up for the "Paperbound" team.

How do we find our way out of the jungle, other than just kicking everyone out of the game? Personally, I see one of two scenarios effecting a change: a matter going before the courts and the parties involved being reprimanded for using copies from paper sources where electronic would do; or publishers ceasing publication of case law in paper.

Considering the economics involved, I think we are more likely to see the latter. Canada is a small demographic for legal publishing, and who knows how long they will be able to sustain publication in duplicate formats. Prices rise tremendously each year and at some point they won't have enough customers to sustain the paper format.

In the meantime, we wait to see which publication will have its torch extinguished next. Stay tuned...

Questions for Canada?

I don't have a specific topic planned for Friday yet, so if you have questions about legal research, law libraries, or law firms in Canada, I encourage you to pass them along to me. I will do my best to answer them here tomorrow. You can either post them as comments to this message, or e-mail them to me at connieblog@sympatico.ca . Please be gentle!

Cheers,
Connie

Ye Royal Kingdom of Bay Street

Last week Jim Milles asked me what the perception within the law firms is regarding students who have just come out of Canadian law schools. Do I see a prevalence of the attitude that "they don't make 'em like they used to"?

I had to chuckle at the question. The attitude towards summer and articling students is somewhat complicated, but it is definitely not one of concern or disdain. If anything, it is quite the opposite.

There is tremendous competition in Canadian firms for the best students. It varies by jurisdiction, but the process of firms and articling students matching up is a formalized one orchestrated by the law societies. See, for example, the detailed procedures established by the Law Society of Upper Canada (Ontario's law society). Almost a year and a half in advance of article placements, second year law students and firms interview one another in a dance rivaling that of mating penguins in its complexity.

To make things even more challenging, the Canadian firms have also been in competition with U.S. firms for the best and the brightest. As recently as five years ago there was a path worn between Toronto and New York City as students were attracted by shiny things: bigger city lights and a little more pocket change.

The large Canadian firms, therefore, felt they had to compete strenuously for these students. Many started hiring them earlier in their careers: many law students are now hired for the summer after second year law school with the idea that they will continue on to article at those same firms after third year law, and then stay as associates once called to the Bar. Some firms even guaranteed students would be hired back as associates after articling. This now means that the large firms are scoping out prospective associates when they are only a few months into law school, before they have even had a proper set of grades. No cold-calling for these kids!

Each law school holds recruiting days in which potential employers try their best to grab the attention of the students. Firms are becoming increasingly creative in achieving this. See one student's list of the swag he accumulated in his blog post, "Career Day's Loot". Later on at the interviews in the firms, students are welcomed with open arms. The crystal is polished and the silverware laid out. As my mother would say, they are "wined and dined" like royalty.

At the same time, students are in great competition with one another to get into the largest "tier one" firms, some of which are known here in Toronto on Bay Street as the "Seven Sisters". They come from law school with stunning resumes of high grades, impressive life experiences such as travel and work opportunities, and long lists of professional activities. At close to twice their age, I am envious. Partners viewing some of the resumes have been known to comment that they would not have made it today with the credentials they had back when they started. And yet, very worthy candidates may not make it into their first choice firms.

Once in the firms, the students do work very hard. But as you might imagine, they are the princes and princesses to whom the crown of the legal profession will one day pass. In this type of atmosphere, if they have any problems with legal research, on whose shoulders does the responsibility rest? Well, on those of the law schools and the librarians who taught them, of course! Because they of course are the best and the brightest and would catch on if taught properly. So if they don't quite get it the first time, then we have not done our jobs and we must take a different tack.

Now, let me back-pedal somewhat. I am dealing a tad too much in generalities and cynicism here, just for your amusement. I have met many law students who were/are brilliant. The groups of students from the last couple of years have been a particular joy to work with: personable, hard working, organized, enthusiastic, and very engaged in their profession. And it hasn't just been the ones I have worked with; my colleagues at other firms have confirmed they are seeing the same thing. So perhaps they have been worth all the extraordinary effort.

It's just that, to me as a non-lawyer, I find the whole process "gob-smacking". And quite frankly, I am jealous that we don't have a similar process for librarians. So, Jim, to answer your question as to what Canadian law firms think of the students coming out of law school: in Ye Royal Kingdom of Bay Street, they are thought of highly.

Yale Information Society Project Fellowships

Application Information

The fellowship is designed for recent law graduates (or Ph.D's) who are interested in careers in teaching and public service in any of the following areas: Internet and telecommunications law, first amendment law, media studies, intellectual property law, access to knowledge, cultural evolution, bioethics and biotechnology, and law and technology generally. This year we have a particular interest in hiring fellows interested in computer security and privacy issues as well as development and the information society.

Fellows receive a salary of approximately $37,000 plus Yale benefits. Fellows are expected to work on an independent scholarly project as well as help with administrative and scholarly work for the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. More information on the ISP is available at: http://www.law.yale.edu/isp/

The formal application materials including the following:

(1) A brief (one to five page) statement of the applicant's proposed scholarly research;
(2) A copy of the applicant's resume;
(3) A law school (or graduate school) transcript;
(4) At least one sample of recent scholarly writing;
(5) Two letters of recommendation.

Applications can be sent all year round as fellows are accepted on a rolling basis. Applications for the 2006-7 ISP fellowship must postmarked no later than Feb. 1, 2006.

The application materials should be sent (in hard copy) to:
Information Society Project Fellowship Program
c/o Deborah Sestito, Room 333
Yale Law School
127 Wall Street
P.O. Box 208215
New Haven CT 06520-8215

Making Legal Research Sticky

Betsy's idea isn't so far fetched. In fact, it is the best solution I have heard of so far!

In law firms across Canada, librarians are struggling with ways to improve upon training for incoming law students (in Canada we call them "summer students" and "articling students" rather than "summer associates" and "first year associates"). We compare notes, we hold programs on it, and we talk to one another behind the closed doors of our firms.

At this year's CALL conference, CALL/ACBD 2005, in St. John's Newfoundland, our Edmonton colleagues talked about their solution: the local law librarian association holds a two-day event for articling students to get them up to speed with legal research. At a nominal cost per student for the law firms, a group of librarians teach and feed the students. I think this concept of sending the kids off to "boot camp" originated from a presentation by Bob Berring about 15 years ago, but don't quote me on that. The food seems to be a significant factor in the Edmontonian plot.

Are we bribing our students and lawyers with food? If you haven't read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, or re-read it recently, you might have forgotten about the importance of making messages "sticky". I'm not talking about serving up your seminars with pancakes and maple syrup, although that is one thought (there's the Canadian content you were hoping for!). I am talking about putting messages together in a way that will not only "stick" with students, but also have them returning to the message continually. Like a meme, such as the Make Poverty History / The ONE group are trying to do with their message. Or like Sesame Street with its fast-paced vignettes that the kids grew up on. Heck, that I grew up on!

That's one of the reasons why Betsy's evil plot is so perfect. If done right, we'll be able to send the law students off to their rooms to play video games as their homework.

Just one thing, though. We are going to need a few more action figures to populate the video games. Nancy Pearl just isn't going to be enough, even in the Deluxe Librarian Action Figure model!

Teaching Research - Get Real!

Connie, I really enjoyed reading your Showdown piece below. The firm librarians and academics have always been at odds every where I have gone, too. And the problems are about the same. In law school, we cannot possibly re-create the experience of real legal research outside, perhaps of a clinic setting. Anything I make up for my class, the students expect to have a "right" answer, that they have to aim for. And of course, in real life, there is no such thing.

And you also point out the problem of students forgetting, or perhaps, "overlaying" whatever we teach them. The other problem, especially with teaching the main course in legal research in 1-L, is that most of the students have absolutely no context to understand what we are teaching them. They have never been to court, they have not been through the civil procedure class, they don't understand enough to know what we are trying to teach them to look up or use. Plus, we all know, they are overwhelmed by their substantive law courses. Law school is like an immersion course in a foreign language and culture, along with all these really difficult concepts being thrown at you in Socratic classes. WOW!

So, I wish I had better suggestions for how to teach than just to offer an optional class to a self-selected few, in a bass-ackwards manner. I have toyed with this really exciting idea. It would take real programming chops, though. I would love to see an interactive video game to teach legal research. It could be played over and over. The student plays him- or herself, vying as a summer associate against Snidely Snoot, from Betteren U. Law School for the one position the Wonderful firm will offer next year when these two graduate from their respective law schools. The position will be offered to the summer associate who proves the best and most efficient in their work (which is research).

Players can use books in a real library, and log their time manually. Or they can go online with Westlaw or Lexis, but the game will charge them for database and printing charges just as the real firm would have charges, though it might cut their time down considerably. They can ask advice, and pull up a librarian an associate, or a mentoring partner. The players can consult a firm file in the computer and possibly find memoranda that will help them along. The score will add together factors including the precision of the answer they come up with (this is part of the trickiness of the programming!), and the time, and the cost factors. There would be a nice range of problems to solve and race against Snidely, and re-running a problem would still be a challenge.

I love this idea, but I cannot imagine who could put together such a game. Even without a lot of animation, it would be a huge amount of work. Ah well, a man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for? (some heaven).

Showdown at Québec City: Canadian law school versus law firm librarians

Thank you, Jim! I am delighted to join the crew here at Out of the Jungle. I have been reading along since your inception and adding my two cents every now and then in the comments, so I am flattered to have been invited on board this week.

As Jim has mentioned, my bailiwick is law firm libraries, as opposed to academic libraries. I will do my best to give a Canadian perspective but please remember I do have this particular bias.

Let me start by recounting a recent meeting that was, for me, a watershed moment in my understanding of the way law students and lawyers learn legal research. At the 2004 Canadian Association of Law Libraries conference, CALL/ACBD 2004 in Québec City, academic and private firm law librarians wedged themselves en masse into a small meeting room for a program put together by CALL's Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Group. This was the hottest ticket of the day in more ways than one...



For years Canadian law firm librarians had been alleging that the academic schools were not adequately teaching law students how to conduct legal research. Meanwhile, the academic law librarians were countering that indeed they had been making concerted efforts to ensure students graduated with solid research skills. This day was to be the big "showdown", and we were all gathering to see who would be left standing at the end of the discussion.

The session was held on Monday, May 17, 2004 and entitled Great Expectations: Are we delivering what they need?

The Panel Speakers:
John Eaton, University of Manitoba, Law Librarian & Associate Professor, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Laurel Murdoch, Librarian, Heenan Blaikie LLP, Toronto, Ontario
Robin Dewe, Vice President, Customer Service, LexisNexis Canada
Laurie Amiruddin, Manager for Customer Learning, Thomson Carswell
Martin Boodman, Partner, Director of Research, McCarthy Tétrault, Montréal, Québec
Gail Hogan, Law Librarian, Law Society of Newfoudland, St. John’s, Newfoundland

This was the session's description:

Law Firm and Law School Librarians are concerned that law students are not acquiring the database searching skills needed to be efficient (=cost effective) researchers. How can Law Librarians and Database Training Providers work together to make online research training exciting to law students. How can we to create a better articling researcher. Our panel will include a law school legal research instructor, a law firm and Great Library librarian, a law firm director of research, and representative voices from the legal online publishing world.

As an outcome, we would like to get some concrete ideas as to how better to prepare our students for life in the law firm. We would like, as Academic Law Libraries, to have a better understanding of how the law firms view our “product” once it reaches them. We would also like to share with the firms our own concerns about how our students view the importance of legal research skills. Why do they not feel the need to take Legal Research classes or attend special training sessions? All sides have a need to live up to Great Expectations.

John Eaton did a fine job representing the academic librarians. They are working hard to balance many different interests. They were working to improve methods of teaching research skills to students, and were seeking to find ways to make it them even better. Several representatives from law school libraries from across Canada stood up from the audience and discussed the particulars of their programs. Many of the schools offer advanced legal research courses in second and third year to supplement what is taught at the beginning. The problem seems to be that few law students are interested in attending these courses.

The problem, though, may run even deeper. Could a law school possibly recreate the type of research work (or other work, for that matter) that a student would be doing in the workplace? It is difficult to recreate the varied types of client matters as well as cost and time pressures that exist in a law firm. No matter how hard a law school tries, can they possibly prepare the student for research in these conditions?

The other speaker who stood out for me was Laurel Murdoch, representing the law firm librarians. She talked about the extensive orientation and research training sessions held by firms across the country. Law librarian associations were even finding it necessary to organize "boot camps" for those arriving at the law firms to meet the demand. Why was this necessary if law schools were adequately teaching the students? And even if work places vary, why could the schools not show students how to locate and update (Shepardize) case law, and locate and update legislation? These are basics common to all forms of legal research.

The real epiphany for me at this session was that, even though law students were being trained as they went along, they were not retaining what was being taught. Why was this? If they were not immediately using what they learned, they immediately lost that particular research skill. Could it be that generally law students (and, later on, lawyers) have a specific type of learning style, in that they only retain a research skill for long as it is necessary, and then that skill is "overwritten" in their brain as the next necessary type of skill comes in?

Perhaps the way we have been teaching students has been all wrong. How could they possibly remember what they learned in first year, three years later when that information is necessary in the law firm? Moreover, how could the two hours (or four hours, or four days, depending on the firm) that we spend with them when they arrive in law firms be expected to be adequate for giving them the basics of
research for the rest of their legal careers?

I came away from the session feeling that, while there was no clear-cut winner in the debate, we all had a better appreciation for the challenges faced by our colleagues in the other organizations. Perhaps, rather than pointing fingers, we needed to work more closely to find solutions to the problems faced.

While I haven't fully answered the questions raised for myself, I have been exploring them and will try to develop these ideas later in the week.

Cheers,
Connie

Welcome Connie Crosby

I am happy to introduce this week's guest blogger, Connie Crosby. Connie is Library Manager at WeirFoulds LLP in Toronto, and author of an excellent blog, conveniently also named Connie Crosby, as well as one of the group bloggers at Slaw.ca. We have invited Connie t0 share a Canadian perspective on legal research in law firms, and in particular how the experience in Canadian firms corresponds to or differs from the criticisms we often hear of law students' research skills. Welcome, Connie!

Out of the Closet - I'm a Bass Ackwards Teacher

Jim already knows this -- we taught together at SLU. The way I teach my Advanced Legal Research class is to give the students worksheets ahead of the topic, designed to encourage them to explore and familiarize themselves with the various research tools of the week The entire class most weeks is not a lecture or demonstration, but a discussion of what the students liked or didn't like, found or didn't find working through the worksheet. I warn the class on the first day that I know the worksheets are very time-consuming (despite paring them down drastically over the years!), and that the three papers I assign during the semester are even more time-consuming.

I have put little bombshells into various worksheets, not to be mean, but, I hope, to give the students an AHA moment when they will realize that there is more than one way to use a tool or do a type of research. I figure by the time these students are graduated, many of the tools I might "teach" them will be gone or changed. What I hope they learn is how to teach themselves and how to evaluate a tool for themselves, including comparing costs. I keep fiddling with the course, adding a bit or changing a bit. When there was all the terrible fight about bibliographic instruction I certainly did not have the courage to put my little hand up and say anything about a different way of teaching. Maybe it's not all that different at all. It's just bass-ackwards.