Today, the level of access to legal information in Canada equals or surpasses that of any country. Not only do several commercial publishers compete to sell their publications but, in recent years, legislatures, many courts and tribunals have built significant repositories on the web. However, the most spectacular advance has come through the creation of CanLII. In this paper, the Daniel Poulin looks at why and how the Free Access to Law (FAL) approach came about in Canada. He sketches the principles supporting free access, but he tries also to make the business case for establishing it.
