The Legal Citation Lab at UNB Law focuses on studying judicial decision-making, legal influence, and the development of case law through citation analysis.
Our mission is to clarify legal research and writing through practical projects that connect theory with practice. We aim to foster a deep understanding of judicial reasoning, the evolution of case law, and the crucial role that accurate citation plays in legal discourse.
The Legal Citation Lab is driven by a dedicated team of faculty and student researchers who share a commitment to understanding how legal authority is built and communicated through citation. The team plays a central role in shaping the Lab’s research direction, developing methodologies and producing insights that contribute to both academic scholarship and practical legal understanding.
Supported by student researchers with diverse academic interests and skills, the Lab fosters a dynamic research culture where theory meets practice—advancing the study of law through data-driven inquiry and critical engagement with the legal tradition.
John Kleefeld is Professor and former Dean of Law at the University of New Brunswick. He previously taught at the University of Saskatchewan, receiving the 2012 Provost’s Award for Outstanding Innovation in Learning and the 2015 Brightspace/STLHE Innovation Award in Teaching & Learning.
Before that, he was at the University of British Columbia, where he directed the Legal Research & Writing Program. He is the founding director of the Legal Citation Lab, which, among other things, aims to track all judicial citations to Donoghue v Stevenson, the case that heralded modern negligence law in much of the common-law world.
Paul Warchuck is an assistant professor at the University of New Brunswick, where he teaches constitutional and administrative law. His research examines the judiciary, focusing on its structure, decision-making processes, and relationship with administrative bodies.
He completed a PhD on the emergence of judicial review by writ of certiorari in 17th and 18th-century England. His current work focuses on empirical analysis of judicial decisions and what it can reveal about judicial decision-making.
Rena Berriault is a JD candidate at UNB Law and a Research Assistant with the Legal Citation Lab. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Law from Carleton University, where her interdisciplinary studies fostered a strong foundation in legal analysis and research.
Before law school, Rena earned her paralegal licence in Ontario and gained valuable legal experience working at Gowling WLG in Ottawa. There, she contributed to the Federal Indian Day School Class Action, work that continues to shape her legal interests and commitment to justice.
At the Legal Citation Lab, Rena brings a sharp analytical lens to the study of legal precedent, judicial reasoning, and citation practices, driven by a deep interest in how legal influence evolves across jurisdictions and through time, particularly in access to justice and historical redress.
The Lab’s inaugural project focuses on Donoghue v Stevenson, the landmark 1932 House of Lords decision that established modern negligence law and continues to be broadly cited across common-law jurisdictions.
This project demonstrates how a nearly century-old decision maintains relevance, informing current legal discourse, emerging jurisprudence on climate, public authority liability, and product safety, while providing a replicable blueprint for citation-based legal influence studies.
The Legal Citation Lab addresses a significant gap in accessible legal history: nearly 6,000 Supreme Court of Canada decisions from before 1970 that exist only in one official language and that have been removed from the official site.
This decision arose from litigation regarding whether the Court is required to publish bilingual versions of its pre-1970 decisions, issued before the Official Languages Act came into effect. The Court has argued that these older decisions are mainly of historical interest and that the cost of translating them would be prohibitive.
This work restores critical judicial history to the public domain. Despite suggestions that pre-1970 decisions hold only historical interest, they remain precedential and are still cited in modern cases, legal education, and scholarly debate.
The Legal Citation Lab curates an extensive collection of tools and references to support accurate legal citation and abbreviation practices globally—including key citation guides from Canada, the UK, Australia, and the U.S.—and provides open-access aids tailored to multilingual legal contexts.
Together, these resources form a comprehensive support system for empirical legal scholarship. They enhance the Lab’s work by providing standardized citation conventions, rich datasets for analysis, and theoretical frameworks essential for understanding how legal ideas are referenced, adopted, and propagated over time.
On May 30, 2025, the University of Ottawa hosted a bilingual conference titled "Lawful Citings | Droit de Cité: What Can We Learn from Legal Citation Practices?". The event brought together scholars, practitioners, and theorists to critically examine the cultural, epistemological, and institutional implications of legal citation practices.
Discussions focused on how citation influences authority, accessibility, and legitimacy within legal discourse, with particular attention to geographical and linguistic contexts, the visibility of legal scholarship, and the impact of technologies like generative AI. The conference aimed to deepen understanding of citation practices and their broader implications for legal scholarship, practice, and the pursuit of justice. The aim is to publish a selection of the conference papers in book form, likely some time in 2026.
