The new Supreme Court Civil and Family Rules are coming into effect soon—need to know more about how the new rules will affect your practice? Here are training opportunities of interest to BC lawyers and legal support staff.

CPD hours, if any, vary. Please contact course providers for details about scheduling, content, and locations.

Civil Rules for Lawyers
CBA BC New Civil Rules
• Surrey, March 31 (Live)
• Richmond, May 3 (Live)

CLE BC New Civil Rules two-day course (for lawyers & legal support staff)
• Vancouver, April 26-27 (Live); also live webcast
• Victoria, May 13-14 (Live)
• Kelowna, May 20-21(Live)
• Prince George, June 3-4 (Live)
• Nanaimo, Penticton, June 15-16 (Video Repeat)
• Kamloops, Vernon, Duncan, Kelowna, Trail, Surrey, June 17-18 (Video Repeat)
• Dawson Creek, June 18-19 (Video Repeat)
• Cranbrook, Victoria, June 24-25 (Video Repeat)
• Courtenay, Prince George, June 25-26 (Video Repeat)

CLE BC New Supreme Court Civil Rules Noon Webcast (for lawyers & legal support staff)
• Webcast, March 30 (Live on web)

Dye & Durham Civil Rules Webinar
• Web, March 31

Law Courts Center New Civil Rules course series
• Vancouver & Richmond, Various dates March-June (Live-register for all or part of a series)

Trial Lawyers Association of BC The New BC Supreme Court Rules
• Kelowna, June 4 (Live)

Family Rules for Lawyers
CBA BC New Family Rules
• Kelowna, April 9 (Live)
• Nanaimo, April 21 (Live)

CLE BC Family Law: The New Supreme Court Rules (for lawyers & legal support staff)
• Vancouver, April 16 (Live); Also live webcast.
• Kelowna, April 19 (Live)
• Victoria, April 22 (Live)
• Terrace, May 15 (Video Repeat)
• Dawson Creek, Duncan, Kelowna, Surrey, and Vernon, May 28 (Video Repeat)
• Nanaimo, Penticton, June 8 (Video Repeat)
• Kamloops, June 10 (Video Repeat)
• Courtenay, Cranbrook, Prince George, Victoria, June 11 (Video Repeat)
• Trail, June 25 (Video Repeat)

Civil Rules for Legal Support Staff
CLE BC New Civil Rules 2010 for Legal Support Staff
• Vancouver, May 7 (Live); also live webcast

Family Rules for Legal Support Staff
CLE BC Family Law: The New Supreme Court Rules for Legal Support Staff
• Vancouver, May 12 (Live); also live webcast
• Surrey, Trail, June 25 (Video Repeat)
• Nanaimo, Penticton, July 13 (Video Repeat)
• Kamloops, Vernon, July 15 (Video Repeat)
• Dawson Creek, Duncan, Kelowna, Courtenay, Cranbrook, Prince George, Victoria, July 16 (Video Repeat)

Resources at BC Courthouse Libraries

We have the Civil Rules Transition Guide, by the Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia on order for all branches.

Check availability at your courthouse library.

We also purchase conference materials from CLE BC and TLABC that are available after their courses.

Web Resources
There is a table of concordance between the current and new Supreme Court Civil Rules, and links to more information on the Ministry of Attorney General’s website.

There’s also a concordance and links to more information for the new Family Rules.

If there’s something I’ve missed, please let us know.

“I’m looking for Northrop v. Germania Fire Ins. Co. 4 N.W. 350 (1880).” 

If you want an older US decision, try searching our online catalogue. We may have it through LLMC, an electronic resource available for in-library use.

LLMC contains a range of older US and international resources, with a random assortment of statutes, cases, and commentary, including words & phrases judicially considered. 

Finding a Case in LLMC Using a Citation
Search the name of the reporter in our library catalogue. In this example, you can see the Northwestern Reporter for 1879-1942 is available both electronically and in microform.  LLMC saves you having to retrieve the case from microform which can be, well…tricky. More importantly, it widens access—only Vancouver has this reporter in microform.

If you’re in a courthouse library with LLMC, click the Access available in Courthouse Libraries link:

A new window should open. Click the title associated with the volume you need. In this example, I'm looking for volume 4.

The first page of that volume should open.  Use the page range information on the left to select the first page of the case you need (or select the range, if you know it).
Click Show Pages.

The page you've entered should open (this may take a moment). 

Use the arrows (bottom left) to move between pages.

Printing Tip 

 

If you want to print more than one page at a time, use the Page Range option to select the whole case.

In this example, the case is only two pages: 350-351.

Then use the printer icon at the top left of the LLMC document, not the Internet Explorer print option.

Email

Use the Save icon and then save to My Documents.  Open your webmail and attach the file.

Save to your own USB

Use the Save icon and then navigate to My Computer.

Your USB will show up as something like E$ on 'Client' (E:). Save file.

Note: You must connect your USB to the computer before you log in and begin searching.

If you have any questions about using this or other materials, please contact the Vancouver Courthouse Library.

Need to see what a BC statute or regulation used to look like? QP LegalEze includes consolidations of BC legislation back to 1991, and regulations back to 2003. 

CanLII has current BC legislation, but the point-in-time only goes back to 2009. Meanwhile, QuickLaw/LexisNexis includes repealed BC statutes since 1997, and point-in-time from 2000 onward. 

QP LegalEze is an electronic product available to use, free of charge, at most BC Courthouse Libraries. Only the bound print versions of the statutes (check availability) are official.

Finding a Consolidation

  Click the QP LegalEze icon to open the program.

 Click the Agree button (bottom centre of page). 

Scroll down and click the date you want.  For example, I’d like to see what the Bee Act said in March 2003 about beekeepers entering property, so I’ll click the last consolidation date before that.

Click the + sign next to the consolidation number (top left of page):

It'll open a list of statutes, organized alphabetically.  Click the + sign for the suitable letter of the alphabet, then the act's title.  The act should open.

Tip: If clicking the title won't open the act, that means there's other content, like a table of changes. In that case, click the plus sign next to the title, and then choose the material that you want to view.

Searching within a Consolidation

Click the Search tab at the top of the page:

Choose the act(s) you want to search by checking the box to the left of its title. Enter search terms and click Search.

Tip: Select the Advanced search tab so QP LegalEze finds different forms of your search words (e.g. enters and entering in addition to enter). You can also select "Find synonyms."

My search terms are highlighted in blue in the results.

Clicking a blue highlighted term will show it within the context of the act. Note that my search terms enter and property are still highlighted. 

Updating

The consolidation is for February 13, 2003, but my bees escaped in March 2003.  To check for changes, I turn to the Table of Legislative Changes at the end of a 2004 volume of the Statutes of British Columbia. It doesn't show any in-force changes between the date of the QP LegalEze consolidation and my date of interest. 

Printing Tips

Use the Print Preview button on the top right instead of the browser's printer option.

If you'd like to print a page showing the consolidation date and that information isn't on the act itself, click the consolidation number. 

This should produce a page with the consolidation date (only works for 1997-Feb 2006 consolidations).

If you'd like help updating a BC statute in the print version, please call or visit the Vancouver Courthouse Library.