If you are searching for a specific lawyer please go to our Lawyer and Paralegal Directory page to find a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. (Note: Not all members of the Society are listed in this directory and not all members provide legal services to the public.)

Search Tips

1. Use Multiple Words
   Using multiple words will return more refined results than a single word. For example, typing Real Estate Law will return more relevant results than just typing Estate. (Keep in mind that relevant results are returned even if they do not contain all query terms.)
   Example: Real Estate Law
   
   
2. Use Similar Words
   The more similar words you use in a search, the more relevant your results will be.
   Example: safe secure privacy security
   
   
3. Use Appropriate Capitalization
   Capitalize proper nouns, and remember that lower-case words will match any case. For example, typing 'search' will return all documents containing the words search, Search, and SEARCH. Typing 'Search', however, will instruct the search engine to look only for the capitalized word.
   
   
4. Use Quotation Marks
   Use quotation marks to find words which must appear adjacent to each other, for example, "Real Estate Law." Otherwise, the search results will include the words 'real', 'estate', and the word 'law', but not necessarily in that order. The words may appear anywhere, and in any order, within the document.
   
   
5. Use Plus (+) or Minus (-)
   Use a plus sign when your search term or phrase must appear in the search results. Use a minus sign to indicate unnecessary term(s). The plus sign tells the search engine that a certain word or phrase is required in the search results, and a minus sign indicates that a word or phrase must be absent in the search results.
   
   Note: A phrase must be contained within quotation marks. Do not leave any spaces between the plus or minus sign and the search term.
   
   
6. Use Wildcards
   Wildcard searches can expand the number of matches for a particular request. The * character is used as the wildcard character.
   
   For instance, searching for 'wh*' will find the words 'wha't, 'why', 'when', 'whether', and any other word that starts with 'wh'. Searching for '*her*' will find the words 'here', 'whether', 'together', 'gathering', and any other word that contains 'her' anywhere in the word.
   
   Wildcards may be combined with the standard plus (+) and minus (-) modifiers, quotes for phrases, as well as the field search specifiers. '+wh* -se*ch' will find all pages which have a word that starts with 'wh' and which does not contain a word that starts with se and ends with 'ch'. 'wh* are' will find the phrases 'where are', 'what are', 'why are', etc.
   
   Example:
   wh*
   "wh* are"
   416-*-*