Decoding Legalese

This section is dedicated to resources to help decode acronyms, abbreviations, and dense legal terminology.

Manitoba Courts Legal Definitions

Can be found: at their website here.

Law scholarship is often written on the assumption that everyone reading it has done years of law school. The entire subject relies on a lexicon of terms with specific legal definitions that may not always be so obvious to those of us outside of the profession.

Thankfully, Manitoba Courts has a comprehensive dictionary of terms and definitions available on their website.

To search it, you can either use the alphabetical navigation at the top or simply CTRL+F search for whichever term you're looking for.

Carlton University Library: Using Uniform Legal Citation

Can be found: for view or download here.

While technically a guide on how to write legal citations, this Carlton Library guide is also a very effective 101 guide on how to read legal citations.

The guide clearly breaks down what every section of a legal citation means, including abbreviations, short titles, and even a little latin.

Additionally, there is thorough coverage of not just Canadian laws, but other kinds of government documents and international law as well.