LESA’s Research for Legal Support Staff program is coming up soon, and it’s worth getting excited about! We recently spoke to seminar chair Karen McDougall to find out why support staff new to the legal community or those wanting to further develop their research skills will benefit from attending this program.
Sneak Preview
While Karen says that she is “leaving the more detailed stuff to the experts – Shaunna and Dale,” she’s also offering some very practical information to program attendees – including a bibliography of the most helpful websites to use in your legal research.
Shaunna Mireau and Dale Barrie will be speaking on the “legislative process, how to find legislation, case law, how to find case law, and keeping it current – which means noting it up to make sure you’re actually relying on a case that hasn’t been overturned on appeal. … You have to make sure it hasn’t had negative treatment by the courts, [or else] it loses its level of persuasion.”
Expert Speakers
While there’s a lot to love about this program, Karen is probably most excited about the high quality speakers who will be presenting.
We’re really, really, really lucky to have landed Dale and Shaunna, because I consider them both to be experts in their field. … Dale, for instance, is the Information, Resources, and Training Services Manager for all of Alberta Law Libraries. … Shaunna is my go to person. Whenever I personally have a legal research question, I always bother Shaunna – poor Shaunna. … She now works at Field, and she’s the Director of Knowledge Management and Process Improvement. … I don’t know half of the things that she’s probably forgotten about legal research. So this is a coup for us to have landed these [two].”
Here’s a short snippet from each of the speaker’s bios:
- Dale Barrie oversees the development and delivery of all research and information services provided via libraries across Alberta. He has presented and written on matters relating to legal research and takes particular interest in the self-represented litigants phenomenon that is currently facing the courts.
- Shaunna Mireau coordinates knowledge management projects, manages her firm’s LESAN Six Sigma continuous improvement projects, and collaborates closely with the firm libraries, technology team, and practice groups. She has given many presentations on legal research and technologies, blogs regularly at slaw.ca, and has contributed to two recent books.
Program Benefits
Karen outlined three reasons why this program has a lot to offer attendees.
- It will help support staff field questions they are asked.
- Since information is power, learning more about legal research will help support staff take more initiative and do different things in their jobs.
- Learning new skills helps augment your current skill set and opens the doors to other opportunities in your career.
Register Online
The early bird registration deadline for this program is fast approaching (October 13); register online now to attend in Edmonton (November 17) or Calgary (November 24).
For more details about the seminar and the discussion topics, see the program brochure.
