CanLII — the Canadian Legal Information Institute — reached a true milestone today with the publication of the one-millionth judgemnt. Yes, there are now one million Canadian court and tribunal decisions freely available over the internet, courtesy of CanLII. It has taken only 12 years for this comprehensive online legal resource to reach the one million mark, a total that includes judgments from more than 200 legal sources. The one millionth judgment loaded into the CanLII database was a judgement from the Supreme Court of Canada — S.L. v. Commission scolaire des Chênes, 2012 SCC 7 (CanLII).
CanLII is an initiative of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, the national umbrella group for the 14 regulators of Canada’s 100,000 lawyers and 3,500 Quebec notaries in
the public interest. It was launched in 2000 on a test basis to provide efficient and free access to the growing number of judicial decisions and legislative documents available on the internet. In 2001, the Federation established CanLII as an ongoing, not-for-profit service to support the legal profession’s research needs while providing the public with permanent, open and free access to the legal heritage of all Canadian jurisdictions. Now guided by a skilled independent Board of Directors, CanLII has recently released a document establishing its strategic priorities for 2012 to 2014. Under its new plan, CanLII continues the original mission established by the Federation but will also pursue content and technological enrichment for the benefit of its professional and public users.
Read the full text of the press release.