Press Release
Congratulations to Schulich Law’s Public Services Librarian David H. Michels (MLIS ’01, PhD ’14), who was part of a nationwide team recently recognized with a Canadian Law Blog Award for Best Legal Papers, Reports, or eBooks of 2024, for the Canadian Open Access Legal (COAL) Citation Guide.
The Canadian Law Blog Awards, also known as the Clawbies, began in 2006 and honour the best legal blogs, newsletters, podcasts, and other publications and periodicals in the Canadian legal landscape from the past year.
The COAL Citation Guide, led by its Editor-in-Chief Professor James Bachmann (Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia), was launched as an alternative to other, more cost-prohibitive options available in Canada; to be a resource for Canadian legal writers and researchers while being accessible to everyone via an open-access publishing model. It is freely available, allowing anyone access without financial barriers and thus reducing the financial burden on law students, self-represented litigants, libraries, and other organizations with access-to-justice-missions.
Michels is one of more than 60 volunteer editors and reviewers who worked on the two-year-long project, part of a national, bilingual, and bijural group. They are committed to the continuity of the guide and continuous knowledge-building and have already received valuable input from Canadian courts, law firms, academic journals, law societies, and educational institutions.
The English-language version is available through the Canadian Legal Information Institute’s website. Work on a French-language version is currently underway.
“We created the COAL Citation Guide to better meet the needs of the Canadian legal community and to have a guide that is accessible to everyone, and I think we have done that successfully,” explains Michels. “I have enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate with this team so far and I’m excited for it to continue. No one does this type of work for the accolades, so the Clawbie Award is an unexpected affirmation that the effort is both valued and appreciated.”
