Past Session Videos
Below are recordings from past VALL events hosted on YouTube.
Available recordings include:
- Lightning Talks 2024
- Abdi Aidid – “The Upside of AI in Legal Practice”
- Thomas Isaac – “Aboriginal Law”
- Cheryl Landes – “Usability in Indexing”
- Kirstin Nelson – “Heirs Property”
- Lightning Talks “Current Projects”
- Privacy Refresher
- Legislative Refresher
- Towards the Light: Transitioning to the Post-Pandemic Reality
- US Law 101
- Approached to Keeping and Enhancing Engagement: Engaging Your Virtual Leaner Audience
- The Latest from CanLII and Lexum
- Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act: A Presentation for VALL
Please scroll down to view.
Lightning Talks 2024
Four short presentations on the following topics:
1. CSO e-Search Experiment with Court House Libraries – Tracy McLean and Caroline Nevin
2. Moving Forward: Improving Interfirm Communication – Kate LeBere
3. What’s on the Horizon? Reflections From Our First Library Inventory – Bri Turner & Chelsea Merkl
4. Hunting For Our Data – Carolyn Petrie
Abdi Aidid on the Upside of AI in Legal Practice
Sponsored by Thomson Reuters February 1, 2024
Abdi Aidid discussed how AI is impacting the legal profession, AI-supported legal research products, and how to incorporate this technology with current legal research practices.
Thomas Isaac – “Aboriginal Law”
Presented Thursday, November 23, 2023
Author of cornerstone text Aboriginal Law and a nationally recognized leader in his field, lawyer Thomas Isaac provided us with an overview of current issues and trends in his area of expertise.
Cheryl Landes – “Usability in Indexing”
Presented Wednesday, April 13, 2023
In this session Cheryl Landes talks about usability concepts to help us create elegant indexes in print and electronic formats and share tips on how to help readers find information quickly and easily.
Kirstin Nelson – “Heirs Property”
Presented Thursday, January 26, 2023
This session with Kirstin Nelson examines the history and legal issues around heirs’ property, a significant contributor of Black urban and agricultural land loss over the past 100 years. Law librarians can help raise awareness, become familiar with legal resources that can assist those impacted by heirs’ property issues, and support the passage of the Uniform Partition of Heirs’ Property Act.
Lightning Talks “Current Projects”
Presented Thursday, September 29, 2022
VALL presents Lightning Talks lunchtime session, with guest speakers Marnie Bailey, Manager of Knowledge Services at Fasken; Ronit Landon, Manager of InfoAction at the Vancouver Public Library; Sean Sallis-Lyon, Reference Librarian at Lawson Lundell; and Tracey McLean, speaking on behalf of Alex McNeur, Librarian at Courthouse Libraries BC. They discuss the various challenges and victories they faced while completing various projects over the past year.
Privacy Refresher
Presented Tuesday, February 22, 2022
VALL presents Privacy Refresher lunchtime session, with guest speaker Nate Russell, Legal and Innovation Counsel and Privacy Officer at Courthouse Libraries BC. This presentation provides an overview of updated privacy laws in BC and Canada, including CPPA and PIPEDA, PIPA, and FIPPA) and how they affect law librarians in their workplaces.
Legislative Refresher
Presented Wednesday, September 29th, 2021
VALL presents Legislative Refresher lunchtime session, with guest speakers and senior researchers Tracy McLean and Liz Blackburn from Courthouse Libraries BC. This presentation provides an overview of the basics of doing both Federal and Provincial (BC) legislative research. They will go over the basics of how legislation is passed and what resources you need to do this type of research, including how to find Hansard Debates, point-in-time historical versions of Statutes, how to find Regulations, and other useful tips.
“Towards the Light: Transitioning to the Post-Pandemic Reality” Panel
Presented Tuesday, June 16, 2021
***The views, statements, and opinions of the panellists are in their individual capacities and not officially on behalf of their respective home organizations***
Traditionally, our year-end luncheon would be an in-person gala to mark the end of another programming year and the promise of summer respite. Unsurprisingly with the COVID-19 pandemic, last year’s event marked a departure from tradition that resulted in VALL programming having to evolve with the times and embrace new ways of doing things.
Certainly, this need to evolve has applied not just to VALL, but to all of us. Given that pandemic circumstances have continued into this year and have impacted us and our home organizations in so many ways, but yet there now seems to be a hope with trepidation in approaching the end of a long tunnel, join us virtually and hear from our panel on the most significant developments of their pandemic experience, and their thoughts on what and how a transition to a new post-pandemic reality may look like for their institutions and our community.
US Law 101
Presented Wednesday, April 28, 2021
As our largest trading partner and only geographic neighbour, it is not an overstatement to say that the United States plays an important part in Canadian life, down to our work as legal information professionals! It is also likely not an overstatement to say that the US legal system is intricate, complex and perplexing.
To this end, join Adam Lederer as he shares his knowledge and experience with US legal research practices, and the American legislative and judicial branches. He will also share some helpful resources and offer tips for using PACER when searching court dockets.
Approaches to Keeping and Enhancing Engagement: Engaging Your Virtual Learner Audience
Presented Wednesday, March 31, 2021
As many of us continue to undertake instruction and onboarding in a virtual environment for the foreseeable future, there may be room for some new strategies to improve learner engagement and to mitigate presenter stress.
To this end, join communications coach Dorthea Hendriks as she shares with us some methods to enhance virtual learning engagement, including effectively using virtual collaboration tools, designing more effective slides, and setting ground rules for establishing a common sense of understanding between instructor and learner.
The Latest from CanLII and Lexum
Presented Thursday, October 1, 2020
CanLII has undergone several major upgrades recently, in both content and features. Xavier Beauchamp-Tremblay, CEO of CanLII, and Pierre-Paul Lemyre, VP Business Development of Lexum will provide an overview of recent enhancements to CanLII and Lexbox. They will give an overview of these changes with a walk-through of recent additions to their commentary collection and of the new note-up features. Attendees will also be provided with some backstory about these changes and their implementation, as well as a glimpse into future developments.
Lexbox has been integrated to CanLII in 2017 to enable legal researchers to create and manage their online research workspaces. Recently, it became possible for Lexbox users to upload their own documents to Lexbox and find them on CanLII. The presentation will cover this new feature and explain where it fits in Lexum’s vision of providing Knowledge Management as a Service (KMaaS!) to the legal community.
Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act: A Presentation for VALL
Presented on Thursday, June 4, 2020
Presenters: Michael McDonald, QC (Clark Wilson LLP) & Adam Munnings (Munnings Law):
The BC legislature has enacted legislation through Bill 41, the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), to make provincial law consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). BC is the first jurisdiction in Canada to take steps to implement the UNDRIP. This Act calls for sweeping changes to the way government decisions impacting Indigenous peoples’ interests are managed in many areas, including forestry, mining, infrastructure, agricultural lands, provincial crown land dispositions, protected areas, arts and culture and, of course, the oil and gas and pipeline sector.
This may result in shared decision making and agreements with affected Indigenous governing bodies as an aspect of the “free, prior and informed consent” referenced in UNDRIP, significantly affecting businesses currently relying on provincial decision making in the lands and resource sectors.
UNDRIP includes a commitment to Indigenous self-determination (article 3), “to maintain and develop their political, economic and social systems or institutions” (article 20), and “to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources” (article 26(2)).
This legislative change will have significant impacts on all economic sectors in BC, and VALL members are invited attend this session as the guest speakers discuss the potential ramifications of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.
