CanLii is an app out of Toronto that allows for easier searching of Canadian law. It’s an effort to make the legislation more accessible, and hoping that trickles down to more numbers of people in Canada being in control of their legal pathways.
New mobile app gives free access to legal resources, legislation and jurisprudence:
by Mitch Kowalski
While RIM flounders, other Canadians in the legal tech field continue to make giant strides.
The newly released app, WiseLii, Canada’s Mobile Legal Research Tool is now available free of charge from iTunes.
This new app was developed with the permission of CanLii (although not affiliated with CanLii) and gives increased mobile access to legal information, legislation and case law for all Canadians.
According to the app’s creator, Toronto lawyer Garry Wise, “This project is an access to justice initiative, bringing legal information, legislation and jurisprudence to all Canadians, free of charge, on the iPhone mobile platform.”
Garry, who is a fervent legal blogger, speaker and one of Canada’s top social media influencers, has been working on this passion project for more than a year.
“I began hearing about law firms building apps,” he said. “I was intrigued but wanted to do something that went beyond the typical “mobile business card” that I was seeing. Increasingly, I found myself reaching for my iPhone at pretrials and mediations, looking up cases, legislation and blogs that were relevant to issues that came up, but the results were hard to read on mobile and the process was not so nimble. A legal research app seemed like an obvious direction. One of our former articling students, Chris Bird was instrumental in developing the idea. As it evolved, the app’s usefulness to the general public as an access to justice tool became increasingly clear – free information democratized justice. That’s the beauty of CanLii.”
Wise pauses for a moment. Then a sly smile appears. “But truth be told, we built it because I wanted to use it myself. “
