CASE STUDY
Practical Law Canada delivers direction and confidence
An associate lawyer at McLeod Law, Anne Rupcich has been practicing for nearly eight years. She focuses primarily on personal injury and general civil litigation, and she uses Thomson Reuters Practical Law Canada to access up-to-date information and procedural guidance while advancing her career with confidence.
Getting started
When discussing Practical Law Canada, Rupcich cites how it was an especially useful tool early in her career, when she was just getting started and seeking direction. “Practical Law is good for knowing how to take something from beginning to end,” she recounts. During her first trial experience, Rupcich consulted Practical Law Canada to ensure she knew every step she needed to take in terms of deadlines and filing correct forms.
She often advises junior attorneys to use Practical Law Canada to get up to speed on topics before seeking mentorship from other lawyers. “If you take your question down the hall with an informed position after consulting Practical Law,” she says, “you look smart and capable and show you’ve put in some effort before just asking somebody.”
Building her practice and exploring the unknown
While Practical Law Canada provided critical guidance early in her career, it continues to prove valuable as she builds her practice. In particular, she uses it to grow her own precedent base with standard clauses.
Now that Rupcich has gained expertise in her specialty areas, she continues to consult Practical Law Canada when she needs a better understanding of unfamiliar issues or topics — like contracts or agreements she hasn’t encountered before.
Value-adding features
The Practical Law Canada features Rupcich relies on most often include checklists, toolkits, and practice notes to ensure she’s up to date on procedural changes or new issues. She appreciates that the resource is continually maintained and up to date. “If you are drafting a pleading, and you’re just double-checking that you have all the core components, the checklists and practice notes can help with that,” she says.
As mentioned before, she relies on standard documents and clauses to build up her precedent base, tailoring them to meet her specific needs.
Practical Law Canada and Westlaw Canada
The nature of her specialty areas requires Rupcich to do a lot of research, which is why she uses Practical Law Canada in tandem with Thomson Reuters Westlaw Canada. Practical Law Canada provides the starting point, while Westlaw Canada offers the granularity required of her practice area: “Practical Law helps me delve into new issues that I haven’t seen before. The practice notes and checklists give me confidence to take on matters that I haven’t addressed in a while or are new to me. And then, I rely on my research from Westlaw to supplement that.”
Practical Law Canada delivers value
Rupcich believes she would be at a disadvantage without Practical Law Canada, especially in her civil litigation practice, which covers a broad area. “It’s impossible to know every aspect of the law in detail,” she admits. “And sometimes, especially in the civil litigation practice group, issues overlap. You might not be familiar with a specific clause in a real estate contract that’s relevant to a civil litigation file,” she adds. Being able to perform searches in Practical Law Canada and understand those types of issues faster is valuable.
Practical Law Canada drives confidence
Being a lawyer is hard work, but having a resource like Practical Law Canada can help you overcome challenges and barriers to success — even if they come from within. “The greatest challenge that Practical Law helps me overcome is having confidence in a new area or with a new issue,” says Rupcich. She adds, “It is a good starting point to know what I need to ask and what I need to do.”
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