Practices: Research & Reference Team

Research & Reference Team

Research and reference are vital components of a law practice, and often critical components of a trial or deal.  We are fortunate, at Alexander Holburn, to have an outstanding Research & Reference Team.  The primary service providers on this team are our Director of Research and our Director of Library Services.

Research: Our firm’s Director of Research works closely with other lawyers in the firm, providing them research support and advice on complex legal problems.  Along with library staff, he also ensures that the firm’s lawyers are up to date with the most recent developments in the law in a variety of areas and coordinates ASCEND™, the firm in-house training program.  In addition to file-related work, the Director of Research assists with projects such as seminars and papers, journal articles and book writing projects.  He was co-author of the chapter on "Land Use Disputes" with Derek Brindle, Q.C., in Injunctions - British Columbia Law Practice (third edition), 2009.

Reference: Our Director of Library Services and our Library Technician are members of local, national and international law library associations.  They deliver efficient access to legal resources that support the firm.  They develop and maintain our collections of print, electronic and online resources, and borrow from outside libraries through formal and informal arrangements.  They provide orientation to new members of the firm and one-on-one training on a continuing basis.  They also offer research assistance with:

• locating case law (reported and unreported decisions), updating, noting up, and checking citations
• finding legislation, monitoring the progress of bills, updating, and noting up statutes
• preparing profiles of businesses and individuals
• due diligence

They also fulfil requests for cases or articles directly from clients, search news and commentary archives, and create topical bibliographies from library and other resources.