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Applied Legal Studies 602 Legal Research and Writing Applied Legal Studies 620 Selected Topics in Applied Legal Studies
Graeme Bowbrick
Graeme Bowbrick, QC, BA, LLB, LLM, is a visiting professor at SFU teaching in the MA-ALS Program. He occasionally teaches undergraduate courses in Criminology and Political Science at SFU and is a regular faculty member in the Criminology and Legal Studies department at Douglas College. A lawyer with experience in both private and public sector practice, from 1996–2001 Graeme was a member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and spent time as a Cabinet Minister, holding the portfolios of Minister of Advanced Education (2001) and Attorney General (2000–2001).
Applied Legal Studies 602: Legal Research and Writing
Iwas approached about developing this course back in 2006 and have taught it since the MA-ALS Program’s inception in 2008.
Sometimes a criticism leveled at postsecondary legal education is that it is too “academic” and not “applied” or “practical” enough. I’ve always been of the view that can be an artificial distinction: Law is both an academic and an applied subject. That is certainly true of the MA-ALS Legal Research and Writing course.
When students begin the course, I always make the point about the applied nature of legal research and writing and that the course is, in effect, really about legal problem-solving. We then begin the course with a hypothetical problem and briefly run through the steps that are necessary—in particular the legal research—to solve the problem. I explain that by the end of the course, students will be able to do that for themselves; for the remainder of the term, we essentially break down the legal problem-solving process into parts that we master one after another.
We look at legislation. Rather than simply leap straight into the tools we can use to research legislation, we first consider, broadly, what legislation is and how it is made. We look at the political and legislative processes in a British parliamentary system of government, with specific emphasis on British Columbia. The idea is that when we research legislation, we can have a much greater insight into what we find (statutes, regulations) if we understand how the legislation came about—who made it (hence the consideration of the political process leading to the formation of the legislative and executive branches of government) and how it is made (hence the detailed consideration of exactly how the legislative process works).
It is only after looking at the political and legislative processes, as a way to provide a better foundation for understanding legislation when we research it, that we then turn to the tools and approach to researching legislation. They include some excellent free resources, notably • BC laws (for BC legislation); • Justice Laws (for federal legislation) and CanLii; • as well as the main subscription resources of QuickLaw and
LawSource.
After completing our consideration of legislation, we move on to case law, beginning with
an overview of judicial decisionmaking (essentially an overview of legal reasoning). We examine the constituent parts of a typical judgment (facts, issues, law, decision, reasons, ratio), and we of course look at the basic elements of legal reasoning including precedent and stare decisis.
Much as we looked at the political and legislative processes as a prelude to learning about the tools for researching legislation, we look at judicial decision-making as a prelude to learning about the tools for researching case law.
When we turn our attention to actually researching case law, we look at all available tools: Court websites, QuickLaw, and LawSource. Unlike the case with researching legislation, I emphasize that a subscription-based tool like QuickLaw or LawSource can be indispensable to proper case law research.
I also make the point that if students feel, when they are later practising as BC Notaries, that they only need to occasionally look up a case here or there, the free services will suit them just fine.
At this point in the course, we turn our attention to legal writing. While we talk about “legal writing,” I emphasize that really, good writing is good writing—whatever the context. Legal writing is just writing in a legal context. So we look mainly at the basic elements of good writing: Clarity of thought, good planning and organization, dispensing with unnecessary jargon (and in particular legal jargon), brevity, and perhaps most important of all, attention to “the audience.”
I emphasize that our writing should always be shaped by careful consideration of who will be reading our writing. Consequently, writing a quick email to another legal professional will obviously involve different considerations than sending a text message to a friend; drafting a Will is necessarily different than writing a letter to a client.
The ultimate objective is that by the end of the course, students are able to pull together everything they’ve learned—the foundational knowledge about how legislation and case law are made (and the greater insight we then have when reading legislation and case law), the practical skill of using different tools to research legislation and case law, and the importance of good writing—and we solve a legal problem from start to finish.
Students will be able to identify the important facts in a problem, formulate a strategy for researching and finding the relevant law, engage in a thorough analysis of the law reaching a correct legal conclusion, and convey their conclusion clearly in writing.
Applied Legal Studies 620: Selected Topics in Applied Legal Studies I began teaching this course in 2014, taking over from the Notary Society’s own legal counsel Ron Usher. They were big shoes to fill, given Ron’s extensive knowledge of areas of notarial practice.
This course is unique in the MA-ALS Program because of the wide range of topics it covers • the law of agency, • business organizations, • taxes on real property, • taxes on transfers, • personal property security law, • builders liens, and • professional ethics and responsibility.
By necessity, given that a typical academic term is only 13 weeks, we can devote only about 2 weeks to each topic. That begs the question, why would we have a course where we can offer only a basic overview of all those topics?
The short answer is that while the MA-ALS Program was carefully crafted, in consultation with the Notary Society, to ensure it meets the needs of future Notaries; it isn’t possible to have full courses on every substantive area of law that a Notary may come across in his or her practice. Consequently, Applied Legal Studies 620 aims to ensure that, in addition to full-term courses in major areas of law arising in Notarial practice, there is also one course that at least provides students with some exposure to other relevant areas of law, as well.
In essence, Applied Legal Studies 620 offers students “mini” courses in each of the five areas of law (agency, business organizations, taxes on real property and taxes on transfers, personal property security, and builders liens) with professional responsibility and ethics “woven” throughout the course.
The objective, again, is not to have students become experts on each of the topics covered in the course, but to give them enough background on each that, once in practice, they will at least be able to recognize issues in those areas should they come across them. As an indication of how the MA-ALS Program seeks to produce wellrounded graduates, when graduates of the program do later recognize an issue in those areas of law, they should be able to draw upon the legal research skills learned in ALS 602 to assist them).
Interestingly, relating back to the “academic” versus “applied” debate, this course is arguably the more “academic” of the two courses I teach in the MA-ALS Program. I say that in the sense that really this course involves a fairly traditional approach to postsecondary education; give students instruction in certain areas of knowledge and then test them to see how well they have learned the material. In that respect, while the substantive areas of law are all important and relevant to BC Notaries, it would appear there are no “practical” skills being taught. Students in ALS 620 do learn (or further refine) a very important skill—problem-solving.
There are different ways to test students in a course like ALS 620. My approach is to use problemsolving exams (in law schools they are commonly called “fact-pattern” exams). The basic approach is to present students with a scenario and then ask questions that require students to apply the legal knowledge they have acquired in the course to answer the questions (or solve the legal problem).
The emphasis on problemsolving skills is important for students in both the short- and long-term. In the short-term it helps to prepare them for exams they will have later in the Program (capstone exams) and after the Program (statutory exams). In the long-term, it helps to prepare them for practice because, after all, legal practice is all about assisting clients with their legal problems, however challenging (“What can we do to assist our elderly parent in the early stages of dementia?”) or routine (“How do I complete the purchase of my new home?”). Recent Developments When I was approached about writing this article, I was asked if I might highlight some recent developments relating to the legal material I teach.
Applied Legal Studies 620, as a research and writing course, would at first glance not appear to lend itself to this because it doesn’t focus on specific substantive areas of law. I would, however, say that the quality and availability of legal research tools have changed markedly (and for the better) since I first taught the course in 2008.
Of particular note is the change in the free resources (such as BC Laws and Justice Laws). A decade ago, a person could access provincial or federal legislation online but it would often be out of date (as much as 6 weeks or 2 months). Now, a person can use the free resources and find legislation updated as recently as a week ago. That means that good legislative research can now be done at no cost (with apologies to QuickLaw and LawSource representatives).
The same is also largely true for researching case law. While the subscription services like QuickLaw and LawSource are markedly superior if you are doing in-depth case law research, a Notary in a typical practice likely needs only to quickly access a particular case he or she wishes to review and that can be done perfectly well using free resources such as the Court websites or CanLii.
Those developments relating to legal research are good news for the financial bottom line of any legal practice.
Regarding changes relating to the subjects I cover in Applied Legal Studies 620, with one general exception there haven’t been recent changes: The law of agency or personal property security, as examples, have remained quite constant. The general exception relates to real estate: Given the importance of housing as a social and political issue, we have seen different governments in BC make significant legislative changes in the past 5 or 6 years.
Those legislative changes, as all BC Notaries will know, seem as though they have been constant. They have included • additional annual taxes on real property under the School Act; • additional annual taxes on real property under the Speculation and Vacancy Tax Act; • the introduction of differing tax rates on real property transfers under the Property Transfer
Tax Act and related regulations (originally referred to as the
“foreign-buyers tax”); and • a new (in 2016) exemption under the Property Transfer Tax
Act for new housing.
They are all in addition to routine annual changes in the threshold for the homeowner grant under the Home Owner Grant Act and related regulations.
The challenge is to keep up with the changes. That is undoubtedly a challenge for practising Notaries and it’s a challenge for those of us teaching future Notaries as we try to ensure they are well-equipped to practise. Conclusion The SFU-Notary Society partnership in the education and training of Notaries is, I believe, a unique one that I hope has been beneficial to everyone who has gone through the Program. It has been my privilege to teach in the MA-ALS Program since its inception in 2008. I estimate I have now seen more than 300 prospective Notaries come through my classes over the years. I look forward to teaching many more in the years ahead. s
