Students and Faculty will be interested to learn about the Free Access to Law Movement.
The movement was initiated in 1992 with the establishment of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University, which aimed to act on the belief that “everyone should be able to read and understand the laws that govern them, without cost.”
The movement has expanded since, and now there are 54 members and multiple national and regional “LIIs” around the world, including CanLII (Canada) BaiLII (Britain and Ireland), AustLII (Australia) and many others.
In 2002 in Montreal the Declaration on Free Access to Law was formulated.
CanLII offers perhaps the best user interface of all the LIIs. It provides very current and deep historical content, including all the decisions of the SCC; intuitive search features; citation- and printer-friendly formats; and a “compare” feature that allows the user to see older and newer legislation side by side, with differences highlighted. Because Canadian law depends on English historical law, it is also helpful to know that the full text of the English Reports (1220-1886) is available at BaiLII.