Hey Everyone,
I’m presently a 3L law student and I’ve stumbled upon Obsidian when trying to optimize my note-taking/outlining and I can firmly say that it has absolutely improved my law school experience. I’ve probably spent more time than necessary “optimizing” my workflow but I’m happy to share what I’ve got at the moment and always looking for any
I’m a Canadian law student so I use mostly Westlaw and CanLII for case law. I import them directly to my Zotero folder via the Google Chrome plugin, which nicely auto-populates the case metadata as well (Case name, court, year…). I read cases directly in the Zotero viewer and highlight the parts I’d like to later extract. I have it set up so that each highlighter color is designated for a particular kind of text (e.g. yellow=general text / blue=header / green=block quote). This can be done by going to:
[ Zotero > Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Config Editor > extensions.zotero.annotations.noteTemplates.highlight > “Modify” ] and then pasting the following code:
{{if color == '#2ea8e5'}}
<h2>{{highlight quotes='false'}}</h2>
{{elseif color == '#ff6666'}}
<blockquote>{{highlight}}</blockquote><p> {{comment}}</p>
{{elseif color == '#5fb236'}}
<p>{{highlight quotes='true'}}</p>{{if comment}}<p><blockquote>{{comment}}</blockquote></p>{{endif}}
{{else}}
<p>{{highlight quotes='false'}}</p>{{if comment}}<p><blockquote>{{comment}}</blockquote></p>{{endif}}
Instructions on how to create/edit code can be found here if you’d like to change up my color system.
I use the “Zotero Integration” plugin to extract the highlights from the case files and import them directly into my Obsidian literature note on the case. I use the following note template for case law:
---
Court:
Judge:
General_Subject:
Specific_Subject:
Zotero: ✅/❌
Publish_Date:
Reviewed_Date: <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>
Citation:
Status: ❌/⌛/✅
Tags: 🌱|🌲
---
# Case: <% tp.file.title %>
Tags:
[URL Link]
---
## Notes
I like the emojis because they are super simple to use and I prefer seeing color as opposed to just “true|false.” I identify “Status” as 
=Not Read, 
=Reading, 
=Read. I use the dataview plugin with the following code block to keep track of all pending case law readings:
TABLE Status, dateformat(file.mtime, "dd.MM.yyyy") AS "Last modified"
FROM !"⚖️ Law/Case Law"
WHERE Status = "⌛"
LIMIT 40
The hourglass symbol can be interchanged with the X or the checkmark to show unread or completed case law readings as well.
I use the “
|:evergreen_tree:” tags to identify if any further “thought” is necessary on the case. Seedling=Need to think about this a bit more and Evergreen=Done and can be put away.
Underneath the Case Title (Level 1 Header) I include separate tags that may help me locate the case later if need be. I like to use nested tags, so some examples may be “#CivPro/Limitation_Period” or “Tort/Negligence/Causation”.
Then after importing my case law notes my file is saved in a separate case law folder. So long as I’ve tagged it correctly and made sure to include a link somewhere in my class notes then it will not be forgotten or will at least be found if ever required for research.
I hope these workflow tidbits were helpful and I look forward to any suggestions anyone may have! Likewise, if anyone has any questions I’m more than happy to help out if possible.
Cheers
maybe someday.
