Legal research is a necessary part of a legal practitioner's role, but it is also often time-consuming. Clio Library, powered by vLex, through Clio Work helps you reduce the non-billable hours your firm spends on legal research by streamlining the review and analysis of legal documents. It works with Vincent to provide powerful research tools.
Get started with Clio Library
Clio Library is a legal research tool that provides access to a vast collection of legal and regulatory information. Regardless of your practice area, you can use the Clio Library to streamline legal research, gain a deeper understanding of legal issues, and find relevant documents from more than one hundred countries.
- In the top left corner of Clio Manage, pick Clio Work from the dropdown menu.
- Select Library from the left navigation panel.
Search and browse options
You can find documents in the Clio Library using a simple search, an advanced search, or by browsing content.
- Simple search
- Use the main search bar for broad searches or to access documents you already know.
- Browse content
- The Browse menu is an index of all Clio Library content, allowing you to filter by jurisdiction, content type (such as case law or legislation), courts, or categories of law.
- Advanced search
- You can use an advanced search for focused, detailed, or complex searches. You can add search terms to specific fields and define parameters to narrow your results.
Boolean operators and search syntax
When searching Clio Library, you can use Boolean operators and search syntax to make your searches more precise and get the best results possible.
| Operator or syntax | Purpose |
|---|---|
| a AND b | Tells the search engine to find both terms. |
| a OR b | Finds results with either or both terms. |
| a AND NOT b | Excludes all results with the second term. |
| "Abc" | Finds the exact term or phrase.; |
| [a b c] | Searches for the words in an automatic proximity of twenty words. |
| [a b c]/N | Customizes the proximity (e.g., [contract employee]/5 will find results where the words are within five of each other) |
Explore Clio Library document types
The Clio Library provides access to a wide range of document types to support your legal research. You can find these documents using the simple search bar, advanced search filters, or by browsing the content.
- Case law
The Clio Library has one of the largest global collections of case law available online. You can search by entering your terms into the search bar and applying the Cases filter, or by filtering through the Browse menu.
- Legislation
You can use Clio Library to access and research legislative documents. Next to the title, you will immediately see if it is in force or if the legislation has been repealed.
- Books and journals
The Clio Library offers an extensive collection of legal books and journals, offering authoritative guidance for your research. Select a book to view the table of contents.
- Official journals and news
You can access official journals or gazettes alongside legal news. The main source of news is the Newsfeed, which you can personalize with SmartTopics.
- Dockets
Dockets are court records that provide detailed information on litigation and its history. You can use dockets to access and analyze litigation history, case information, and filing trends.
- Practice notes and key number topics
Clio Library provides practical research guides (Practice Notes) and the Key Number System for organizing Canadian case law.
Navigate and filter search results
The results page displays documents matching your query. This article explains how to interpret search results and refine them quickly using filters.
Understand the results page
The results page is organized into three columns.
- Left column: Provides options to refine your search results by content, jurisdiction, and date range, or to search within the results.
- Center column: Displays search results documents.
- Right side column: Displays additional information that depends on the document type. In the top right, you can add the document to a folder, create an alert, or download the document. For more information, see Manage Documents in Clio Library.
Refine search results
Search results are organized automatically by relevance, but you can refine them further.
- Reorder results: Use the menu at the top right of the main Documents column to reorder your results. Sort by Most Cited, Most Recent, Relevance, and Most Visited.
- Matching paragraphs: The Document Preview displays a paragraph from the case that matches your search terms. Click the Show matching paragraphs icon to view more sections that match your search terms.
Apply filters
Both the general search results page and the Vincent results page display a variety of filters on the left side.
- General filters: Available filters include Search in results (for searching within results), Content type, Jurisdiction, and Date.
- Jurisdiction-specific filters: These filters appear for specific regions and include Court, Reported series, and Category.
- Cited Authorities filter: This filter allows you to see only documents that cite a specific authority. To use this filter:
- Select Cited Authorities.
- Check the boxes next to the authority or authorities you want to include.
- Choose any or all of the selected values at the bottom of the pop-up.
- Click Apply.
Analyze case laws with Clio Library citators
The Clio Library offers advanced tools to analyze documents and streamline your research. You can use these citators to quickly evaluate the reliability of a case and understand its legal context.
Precedent map
The Precedent Map is an interactive visualization that helps you discover case law authorities.
- Understand the map: The central circle is the original case. Circles inside it represent cases cited in the current case, and circles on the outside represent subsequent cases. These are ordered chronologically.
- To interact: click on a case to view its related information. Double-click on a case to make it the focus of the map. The map filters on the right side of the screen allow you to narrow your results.
Cited in and treatments
To determine if a document is good law, the Cited in tab shows you how and where it has been subsequently cited.
- Understand treatments: For some jurisdictions, cases will have a phrase above the title in red, green, or black. These phrases and colors indicate how your document has been referenced in other cases (e.g., positively or negatively).
- View context: You can click on the phrase or color to view the context of the citation.
Cited Authorities
The Cited Authorities tab presents a list of documents that are cited within the judgment you are viewing. This helps you build arguments on a reliable authority.
- View legislation and case law: You can choose to see cited case law or legislation. If legislation has been amended, a yellow notification will appear.
- Understand significance: The Strength bar shows the significance of an authority in relation to the current document. It takes into account the frequency of citations, whether the document is quoted, and whether it addresses similar points of law.