Strategic PrioritieS 2012 to 2014

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4 About CanLII

6 Mission and Goals

8 Strategic Priorities

15 Statistics

Table of Contents

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Table of Contents

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Funded by Canada’s lawyers and notaries for the benefit of all, CanLII provides free access to legal information.

HistoryThe 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.”

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 todayIn 2011, CanLII is on track to receive more than 7 million site

visits and to deliver over 81 million page views to users.

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 MovementCanLII 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.

about canLii

Frequency of canLii use

From 20,000 documents in 2001to 1 million in 2011

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Mission Free access to law

goals• Meet public interest in free and unrestricted access

to legal information.

• Satisfy legal community needs with a free,comprehensive and robust legal research service.

Strategic Priorities1 Secure permanent role as foremost

source of free law in canada.

2 continually enrich content to meet the needs of public and professional users.

3 Deliver easy to use professional grade toolsand a compelling site experience.

4 continuously promoteand defend free access to law.

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Public awareness and confidenceApproximately 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

www.linkedin.com (search “CanLII professional users group”)

twitter.com/canlii or @CanLII

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.

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.

To strengthen the foundations of its success and to be that single place,

CanLII will pursue the following initiatives:

right to access and publishCanLII 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.

1Secure permanent role as foremost source of free law

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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.

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 exploreWhen 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.

Lawyers: adding this would increase my reliance on canLii

2continually enrich content to meet the needs of public and professional users

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3Deliver easy to use professional grade tools and a compelling site experience

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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.

SearchabilityIncreasingly, 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 accessSmartphone and tablet adoption among the public and professionals has been phenomenal

and continues to increase. The combination of powerful devices and the “internet-

everywhere” reality delivered through advanced mobile networks and widely available Wi-

Fi 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 toolsCanLII 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.

Deliver easy to use professional grade tools and a compelling site experience

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4continuously 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.

Domestic and international public advocacy on access and fair use of legal materialsCanLII 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.

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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Statistics

1.5M page views in 2010 generated by links from other sites

Sources of canLii page views (2005-2011)

Strategic PrioritieS 2012 to 2014