Strategic Priorities 2012 to 2014
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Table of Contents About CanLII Mission and Goals Strategic Priorities Statistics
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About CanLII Funded by Canada’s lawyers and notaries for the benefit of all, CanLII provides free access to legal information.
History The National Virtual Law Library Group formally presented the “CanLII project” to the Federation of Law Societies of Canada (“Federation”) in August of 2000. “CanLII’s Road Map” described a vision of a “new, original resource, offering free access to all primary sources of law” that would be “set up for the benefit of members of the Canadian legal profession and the Canadian public in general.” The mission was to be “the best place to consult Canadian law.”
From 20,000 documents in 2001 to 1 million in 2011
CanLII quickly grew from one legislative and 18 case law collections comprising 20,000 documents in 2001, to more than 360,000 documents in 2006. Now with one million documents across 199 collections, CanLII is closer than ever to the goal of being the best place for all Canadians to consult Canadian law.
CanLII today In 2011, CanLII is on track to receive more than 7 million site visits and to deliver over 81 million page views to users.
Frequency of CanLII use
In a 2008 formal survey of more than 2000 lawyers across the country, 39% of respondents reported daily or weekly use. A 2011 informal survey suggests that reliance on CanLII has grown markedly since 2008, as shown in the following chart.
LIIs around the world and the Free Access to Law Movement CanLII is a founding member of the 40-country strong Free Access to Law Movement and a signatory to the 2002 Montreal Declaration on Free Access to Law. Through its association with other Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) around the world, CanLII seeks to secure and expand the openness of Canadian courts and legislatures and to promote the same objectives abroad.
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Mission
Free access to law
Goals •M eet public interest in free and unrestricted access to legal information.
• S atisfy legal community needs with a free, comprehensive and robust legal research service.
Strategic Priorities
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Secure permanent role as foremost source of free law in Canada.
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Continually enrich content to meet the needs of public and professional users.
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Deliver easy to use professional grade tools and a compelling site experience.
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Continuously promote and defend free access to law.
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Secure permanent role as foremost source of free law Free law begins at the source. Governments, courts and administrative decision-making bodies have the power to make the law and the power to free it. When the law is free, it leads to better outcomes for the citizens whose lives are governed by those laws. This reality is accepted by nearly all originating sources of Canadian law. Over time, most have facilitated no-charge access to online versions of their statutes, regulations and rulings. Freely accessible publication at source is an essential element in freeing the law. However, as CanLII users have demonstrated, the law is only truly free when walls are lowered and all law can be found in one freely accessible place, instead of on hundreds of different websites.
Public awareness and confidence Approximately 2.2 million unique visitors connect with CanLII each year. There are more than 7 million visits on the website annually, generating over 80 million pages viewed. And yet, despite the high online traffic, there is significant potential for higher usage among legal professionals. To promote awareness, loyalty and higher user traffic, CanLII will increase its engagement of media (trade, mass and social), expand its participation in public events, grow user-networks, pursue train-the-trainer initiatives, conduct user surveys and seek out continuous feedback. www.youtube.com/user/CanLIIdotORG www.facebook.com/CanLII.org
To strengthen the foundations of its success and to be that single place, CanLII will pursue the following initiatives:
www.linkedin.com (search “CanLII professional users group”) twitter.com/canlii or @CanLII
Right to access and publish CanLII operates under a variety of formal and informal authorizations vis-à-vis its published content. In some cases, the materials are subject to conditions set by courts and government bodies who claim intellectual property rights relating to the documents. To guard against risks that originating sources of law might impose restrictions on CanLII’s right to publish content, as well as on the rights of users to use and reuse parts of that same content, CanLII will seek to bring as much of that content as possible within a common contractual or policy framework guided by principles of open access and fair dealing.
plus.google.com/s/canlii
Funding sustainment and growth Canada’s lawyers and Quebec’s notaries provide CanLII’s operational funding. For 2011, the average contribution of Canadian lawyers was $34. These greatly appreciated contributions flow through the provincial and territorial law societies and are delivered to CanLII by way of its sole shareholder, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. The funding supports current operations, but an expanded funding base is necessary to provide long-term stability for regular operations and ongoing improvement in service quality. In addition, all forms of growth (database size, collection scope, usage, etc.) create incremental expenses. Because it is in the interests of legal professionals and the public that CanLII continues to grow, the organization must plan for annual increases to its cost base. To that end, CanLII will seek supplementary funding from additional sources and will explore market opportunities consistent with its mandate and obligations to content originators.
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Continually enrich content to meet the needs of public and professional users
Free access to legislation and case law is fundamental to the rule of law. Primary source research materials of this sort are most useful when paired with the so-called secondary source research that synthesizes, contextualizes or otherwise explains the application of the law.
Lawyers: adding this would increase my reliance on CanLII
CanLII wants to enhance the value of its services by building bridges between the legal information it offers and the expertise available in other types of legal materials. Enriching CanLII services in this way responds to public and professional user requests. From the perspective of the general public, the value of free access to the law through CanLII will be multiplied many times over if CanLII can assist in bridging the gap between information and understanding. CanLII’s goal therefore is to collaborate with willing partners to pave the way to a more accessible, reliable and professional legal environment in Canada.
Partner, extend and explore When it comes to accessing content on or through the CanLII site, CanLII will strive to expand its users’ access to high value legal materials. This may involve incorporating secondary sources into CanLII, but it could also occur through facilitating searches of materials hosted elsewhere as CanLII’s interests go beyond growing its own site and extend to pursuing partnerships that advance the goals of other leading legal information providers. Potential partners include not-for-profit as well as for-profit institutions with an interest in expanding the free availability of their legal materials. CanLII will also seek out opportunities to improve understanding. For example, working with educational and other organizations, CanLII will explore opportunities to develop specialized services such as topic compilations and open access casebooks, and other professional user-generated content.
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Deliver easy to use professional grade tools and a compelling site experience
Regular users know that over the past several years CanLII has delivered many enhancements to keep its core functions as a research tool competitive. CanLII will continue to invest in site performance and opportunities for improvement to satisfy the hyper-connected legal professional of 2012 and beyond. CanLII understands as well that less sophisticated users may have different needs. For all users, it holds true that CanLII must be inviting, easy to use and capable of meeting all levels of user demand if CanLII is to best serve the interest of legal profession and of Canadians in general.
Searchability Increasingly, users want to search across multiple public and private stores of data in a way that identifies not only relevant documents, but that explains the connection between the documents. Context, integration and personalization are key. CanLII will therefore pursue opportunities to improve search functionality to accommodate new and non-traditional approaches to search.
Mobile access Smartphone and tablet adoption among the public and professionals has been phenomenal and continues to increase. The combination of powerful devices and the “interneteverywhere” reality delivered through advanced mobile networks and widely available WiFi services means CanLII users will spend less time in front of computers and more time on the move. CanLII will seek to respond to the requirements of its mobile users.
Web 2.0 features CanLII’s site presently operates in a manner that limits opportunities for experimentation or adoption of various so-called “Web 2.0” features such as greater interactivity or persona lization. Planned site enhancements targeted for Spring 2012 remove this barrier. User need and demand for next generation features of greatest value to CanLII users will be implemented as funding permits.
Online training tools CanLII will heighten user site experience and place greater emphasis on delivering tools, tips and training where users need it most – on the site itself. This extends to the development of interactive learning tools and a wide-variety of online resources, including: “how-to” videos, step-by-step instruction via text or pop-ups, webinars and so on. Delivering on this commitment will involve a combination of professionally developed and user-generated content.
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Statistics
Continuously promote and defend free access to law Since its inception, CanLII has relied on visionary volunteers from the legal, academic and justice communities to pull together the audacious and often controversial undertaking of a Canadian movement for free access to law. CanLII is seen on the international stage as a pioneer, defender and model. Because CanLII has the benefit of stability and because it is a success, it continues to set international benchmarks for what is possible. Accordingly, CanLII has a responsibility to support international initiatives in countries where battles for simple access to data are still being fought.
1.5M page views in 2010 generated by links from other sites
Domestic and international public advocacy on access and fair use of legal materials CanLII is an original signatory to the Montreal Declaration (http://www. canlii.org/en/info/mtldeclaration.html) which states, among other items, that “maximising access to [public legal] information promotes justice and the rule of law.” By virtue of its reputation and mission, CanLII has the opportunity to engage in public policy debates central to its interests both in Canada and internationally. CanLII will increase its engagement with fellow signatories of the Montreal Declaration. CanLII is an example of what can be achieved with the passionate commitment to free access to law by lawyers, governments, the judiciary and civil society. Accordingly, CanLII bears an obligation to support international developments in the free access to law movement and it will do so readily through participation in international forums and through contributing leadership and expertise to international efforts.
Sources of CanLII page views (2005-2011)
Support Federation of Law Societies of Canada’s “access to justice” initiatives CanLII supports the Federation’s activities undertaken in conjunction with its membership (the provincial and territorial law societies) to address various access to justice concerns. CanLII finds common cause with the Federation, and with other public interest organizations pursuing the same end, and will leverage its resources and orient its public actions in that direction.
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Strategic Priorities 2012 to 2014