New President Named for CanLII

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Aug. 10, 2015) - The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) and the Federation of Law Societies of Canada are pleased to announce that Xavier Beauchamp-Tremblay of Montreal is CanLII's new President, effective August 10, 2015. The announcement was made jointly by Martin Felsky, PhD, JD, the Chair of the CanLII Board of Directors, and Tom Conway, President of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada.

Mr. Beauchamp-Tremblay obtained his law degree from the University of Montreal and was admitted to the Barreau du Quebec in 2007.

Prior to joining CanLII, Mr. Beauchamp-Tremblay was an associate in the Montreal office of Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP. He practised in the areas of intellectual property and information technology law, with an emphasis on trade-mark and branding law. Mr. Beauchamp-Tremblay completed his articles and began his career at Stikeman Elliott LLP where he advised clients in commercial litigation, intellectual property and insolvency law.

An avid tweeter and blogger, Mr. Beauchamp-Tremblay has a keen interest in legal technology issues and the impact of technology and social media on legal practice. He is a frequent speaker on technology topics and gave talks at Canada's Legal IT Conference and the American Bar Association's Techshow. He has also written on the intersection of technology and the law.

"I firmly believe that technology and online legal information will play an increasingly critical role in the future of the legal profession and in interactions among citizens, courts, tribunals and government", said Mr. Beauchamp-Tremblay. "As CanLII's new President, I am eager to play a pivotal role in this unfolding story", he added.

At Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP, Mr. Beauchamp-Tremblay played a central role in the development of Actifs créatifs, a blog providing clients with commentaries on various aspects of intellectual property law, and in the development of another ground-breaking technological innovation. "Xavier Beauchamp-Tremblay is an out-of-the-box thinker with a proven track record in creative problem solving, particularly in the application of technology to the delivery of legal services. We are very pleased that he will be leading CanLII at this important juncture", said Tom Conway, the President of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada.

Mr. Beauchamp-Tremblay's priorities as President include expanding CanLII's offering of secondary materials and cultivating alliances with justice system stakeholders and other groups that share CanLII's mission of providing free access to Canadian law and legal information.

CanLII is a non-profit organization created by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, on behalf of its 14 member law societies. It was launched in 2000 on a test basis to provide efficient and free access to the growing number of judicial decisions and legislative documents available on the internet. In 2001, CanLII became a permanent, not-for-profit service to support the legal profession in the performance of its duties while providing the public with permanent open and free access to the legal heritage of all Canadian jurisdictions.

In 2014, CanLII Connects was launched. CanLII Connects is a free website that provides commentary on case law from well-regarded commentators, including lawyers, scholars and others with professional competency in legal analysis. CanLII Connects was created to make it faster and easier for legal professionals and the public to access high-quality legal commentary on Canadian court decisions.

CanLII is also a member of the Free Access to Law Movement, which includes the primary stakeholders involved in free, open publication of law throughout the world.

The CanLII web site features 28 legislative databases and 276 case law databases, representing nearly 1.5 million cases. In 2014, CanLII registered 9.5 million site visits.

The CanLII Connects web site hosts over 35,000 case commentaries and summaries supplied by the legal community.

Access to the CanLII service is available at http://www.canlii.org, or through the web site of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada http://www.flsc.ca. Access to CanLII Connects is available at http://canliiconnects.org.