Hyperlawhypertext legal database

Info Finding your way around

Finding your way around

The graph, the jurisdiction map, the browse panel and search.

The landing page is a map of the corpus, not a list of documents. It has three entry points: the force-directed graph, the jurisdiction map behind Switch jurisdiction, and the browse panel underneath.

The landing graph

Each dot is an instrument or a case. The radius grows with the number of links, so heavily cited statutes and leading judgments stand out. At the fitted view the graph draws only the strongest links; zoom in, or search, to reveal the rest.

  • Hover a node to see its title, citation and link count.
  • Click or tap a node to open it; on touch, tap its name once to focus and again to open.
  • Drag to pan, use the wheel or a pinch to zoom. The view stops at the fitted frame, so you cannot lose the graph in empty space.
  • Search in the find box to filter the graph itself. Matching nodes and their one-hop neighbours stay visible, matches are labelled, and the results rank first.
  • − / + change the node budget (50 to 1,000) and reload the graph.

The jurisdiction map

Switch jurisdiction swaps the graph for a world map. Clicking a country with its own corpus opens that region on the first click. Canada opens the merged Canadian graph; Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States open their own; the EU is listed under International institutions because it has no country outline.

A region selection changes the graph, the browse panel and the corpus statistics together. The brand link remembers the last region you chose, so clicking the logo returns to that region rather than resetting to Canada.

The browse panel

Below the graph, the Filters box narrows the lists without a page reload (and degrades to ordinary links without JavaScript). The kind chips are additive: every kind the region publishes starts selected, and turning one off narrows the result set. Under them:

  • Letters filter instrument titles and case styles of cause by their first letter.
  • Jurisdiction isolates one origin (for example British Columbia within the Canadian region).
  • Family and year narrow federal regulations by their SOR/SI family and year.
  • Sort orders cases by decision date, style of cause, docket number or link count; instruments follow their consolidation date or title.

Each selected kind gets its own section. A single kind opens expanded; several kinds stay collapsed so the panel remains scannable.

The full search page is at /search. It searches instrument titles and aliases, citation paths, provision text, case styles of cause, citations and judgment paragraphs. Each regional corpus has its own search route, such as /bc/search or /us/search.

On an instrument, case, cited-by or history page the header carries a search box with instant title suggestions. Press / from anywhere on those pages to focus it. The landing graph's find box is different: it filters the graph and offers direct navigation, but the search page is the full-text search.