This document provides an overview of searching case law, statutes, and secondary sources on WestlawNext. It discusses how to search using natural language or Boolean operators, filter search results, analyze whether cases are still good law, and utilize the West Key Number System to efficiently research topics. The document also demonstrates how to browse statutes, find related cases that have cited or applied a key case, and determine the negative treatment of cases to assess if they remain valid law.

1. WESTLAWNEXT
Legal - Overview

2. In this session we will explore:
• -case law searching in Westlaw.
• -statutory searching in Westlaw.
• -the West Key Number System of searching.
• -how to determine if a case or statute is still good law.
• -ALR, aka American Law Reports.

7. This is what you see when you
first open WestlawNext!
The search box is designed like Google
for simplicity.
24/7 assistance

8. WESTLAWNEXT
Case Law Searching

11. If you know the case citation,
type it in. No capital letters or
periods are necessary.

13. Let‟s take the following fact pattern…
• While your client was stopped for speeding, New York
State Police allowed a drug dog to sniff around the car.
When the dog alerted, a search of the car was conducted.
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, did the search
violate the 4th Amendment of the Constitution?
• Jurisdiction: U.S. Supreme Court

16. When you click a link for a specific court,
the 10 most recent cases from that court
are automatically displayed.

17. You have the option of running a
traditional Boolean search with terms
and connectors, or a natural
language search.
Westlaw recognizes whichever
search format you use.
Here, we are using
natural language searching.

18. 71 Supreme Court cases are
retrieved. You can sort by
relevance, date or most cited.
The right column lists a sampling of related
secondary sources and briefs.

19. You can narrow your search result using
filters in the left column by jurisdiction,
date, reported status, topic, judge,
attorney, law firm, key number, party and
docket number.

20. You can see how a
specific judge has
ruled on your
issue, which can
be helpful in
litigation.

21. Out of the 71
Supreme Court cases
our search retrieved,
let‟s identify the case
that Westlaw
determines most
relevant to our fact
pattern.

22. LET‟S RUN THE SEARCH
AGAIN, THIS TIME USING
BOOLEAN CONNECTORS.
Boolean searching, while not as easy as natural
language searching, allows you to control your search
results very specifically.

23. AND, OR, NOT…
• Boolean Operators are words (AND, OR, NOT) used to
combine or exclude words in a search, producing more
focused results.
• Click HERE for a simple visual explanation of this
concept.

24. Boolean Symbols in WestlawNext
Connectors and Expanders
• & AND
• /s In same sentence
• Or OR
• +s Preceding within sentence
• /p In same paragraph
• " " Phrase
• +p Preceding within paragraph
• % But not
• /n Within n terms of
• ! Root expander
• +n Preceding within n terms of
• * Universal character
When and how should I use
these?
• When: You have a focused
search in mind.
• How: Use one, two, or more in
combination.
• How: Don‟t get overwhelmed
with trying to incorporate
several connectors or
expanders.
• You may actually ELIMINATE useful results
this way!

25. Here is our same fact pattern…
• While your client was stopped for speeding, New York
State Police allowed a drug dog to sniff around the car.
When the dog alerted, a search of the car was conducted.
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, did the search
violate the 4th Amendment of the Constitution?
• Jurisdiction: U.S. Supreme Court

26. Back at the Home screen, select Cases.

28. Here we are taking the key
concepts from our fact
pattern and requiring the
phrase “search and seizure”
or the phrase “4th
Amendment” to be in each
case.
We are also requiring the
word “dog” or “canine” as well
as the phrase “traffic stop” to
be present in all of the cases
we retrieve.

29. Note that each search, natural
language and Boolean, retrieved
Illinois v. Caballes as the key
case.
Boolean retrieved 75 cases,
natural language 71.

30. Let‟s take these one by one.

31. Here we have mostly case briefs
filed throughout the case. Also
included are oral arguments,
petitions and similar filings.

32. We‟ll come
back to this.
Is your case
still good law???

33. Here we have a
visual history of
how your case has
proceeded through
the courts.

34. To see how your case has
been used (cited) by other
cases, administrative
materials, secondary
sources and briefs, click
on Citing References.
This is an excellent tool for
attorneys and researchers
for determining how cases
have been interpreted,
analyzed and
distinguished.

35. PRINTING, EMAILING…

37. You can determine
your print layout
preferences.

39. You can also
email the case in
PDF format.

40. Same layout
options as with
print

44. NEGATIVE TREATMENT
Is your case still good law?

45. No flag = good law so far - Yellow flag = caution – Red flag = no longer good
law (has been overruled, overturned)
Click on the flag for specific negative history. We will see this soon.

46. Just because there is no flag…
• … does not mean this is the best case!
• A case like Roe v. Wade – (Supreme Court of the United
States January 22, 1973 - 410 U.S. 113)
• A very famous U.S. Supreme Court case in the 1970s has
a yellow flag because some courts have not agreed with
certain aspects of the Court‟s ruling – but this case has
been cited over 22,000 times!
• If later cases have „cited‟ to (referred to) a case thousands
of times, even if there is some negative treatment, this
case is still good law, and very, very important!
• Bottom line: don‟t be afraid of cases with yellow flags!

47. SO LET‟S CHECK THE
NEGATIVE TREATMENT
for Illinois v. Caballes

49. The most negative
treatment is displayed at the top of the
list. A red flag
warns that the case is no longer good law
for at least one of the points
it contains. A yellow flag warns that the
case has some negative history but
has not been reversed or overruled.

50. The green depth of treatment bars indicate the extent
to which citing cases discuss the cited case.
The headnote numbers indicate which headnotes
(points of law)
the citing case is discussing.

51. HEADNOTES….
…explained

52. 1. A court issues an opinion in a case.
2. A copy of the case is obtained by West,
where attorney-editors read the cases and pick
out the points of law or legal issues in the
case.
3. These legal issues or points of law are
summarized in a “headnote” and assigned a
topic and key number.

53. Headnote 6 of Illinois v. Caballes is
discussed extensively in State v.
Griffin.

54. So is the case good law or what?
• The main ways to access KeyCite information are:
• while viewing a case with a KeyCite flag, click the flag.
• type kc or keycite followed by the case citation.

55. Click
on the
flag.

56. OR…

58. LET‟S DO ANOTHER
EXAMPLE.
Case Law Searching

59. Terry v. Ohio
Let‟s find a New York case
that has applied the
landmark Supreme Court
case, Terry v. Ohio.
Police may stop a person
if they have a reasonable
suspicion that the person
has committed or is about
to commit a crime, and
may frisk the suspect for
weapons if they have
reasonable suspicion that
the suspect is armed and
dangerous, without
violating the Fourth
Amendment prohibition on
unreasonable searches
and seizures.

62. Some courts located in New York
(and in all of the United States) are
federal courts, which is why you see
both Federal and State court listings
under New York. It may seem
confusing at first, but it is the U.S.
court structure.
The following slide contains a very
simplified version of the U.S. court
structure. For further
clarification, ask your professor or a
librarian.

63. In general, you will search these courts most often.

64. By selecting All New York
State Cases, we ensure
that we are getting cases
from NY trial courts,
appellate courts and most
importantly, NY‟s highest
court, the
New York Court of
Appeals.

65. Here we are
running a
search for
Terry v. Ohio
in all NY
cases.

66. We retrieved 610 New York cases containing Terry v. Ohio.
Note the cases can be sorted in order of relevance (most
extensively discussed)date (most recent first), most cited (referred
to most by other cases) or most used (similar to most cited, but
refers to Westlaw usage).
Most relevant or most cited are key cases.

67. Which case do I choose?
• After you have identified your issue and your key search
terms (or natural language terms), and retrieved a list of
cases, your challenge is then to determine which case(s)
you should use.
• This is where you need to take some time. Work with a
librarian, ask your professor, and balance whether the
case is still good law, and whether it closely follows your
fact pattern.
• This may sound overwhelming, but it can be done, with
practice and help!

68. WEST‟S KEY NUMBER
SYSTEM

69. REFRESHER!!!
WHAT ARE HEADNOTES AND WHY ARE THEY
IMPORTANT???

70. 1. A court issues an opinion in a case.
2. A copy of the case is obtained by West,
where attorney-editors read the cases and pick
out the points of law or legal issues in the
case.
3. These legal issues or points of law are
summarized in a “headnote” and assigned a
topic and key number.

71. Corresponding Key
Numbers

72. Click on “Tools” to access
the Key Number System.
Let‟s start from the
Home screen to see
how the Key Number
System works.

74. Browse the list of topics to find the topic
related to your issue.

75. Click on the topic, e.g., searches and
seizures, to display the topic page, which
contains the key numbers (subtopics) classified under
that topic.

76. At the topic page, you
can zero in on key
numbers that match your
issue.
1.
2. (Select jurisdiction)

77. By selecting the general topic searches and seizures (topic #349), and
then within that topic selecting the key number(s) associated with
your specific legal issue(s), you are able to easily search for cases that
discuss these legal issues.

78. STILL A LITTLE
UNEASY?
Don‟t be. Click here for more info.

79. WESTLAWNEXT
Statutory Searching

80. If you know the statutory citation, you
can just type it in the search bar. As with case
citations, you can do this from
any screen!

82. Another way to search for statutes is to select
Statute & Court Rules from the main screen.

84. This is the Table of Contents service which lets
you browse statutes, and view a statute in the context
of the sections around it.

87. This is the Table of Contents
for the NY Penal Code.

88. Further breakdown of NY‟s
complex statutory structure

90. Scroll down to the bottom of the statute.
You will find a Practice Commentary at the
end of each statute, written by practicing
attorneys. These commentaries give practical
advice for interpreting the statute.

91. This is a very extensive Practice Commentary
at the end of the statute. These are extremely useful for
interpreting statutes and cases that have applied the statutes.

92. You can view a statute‟s history, how
other cases have interpreted the
statute (Notes of Decisions), law review
and journal commentaries, cross-
references, library references, treatises
and practice aids, and more.

93. IS YOUR STATUTE STILL
GOOD LAW?
The same steps for cases apply to statute: while
viewing a statute with a KeyCite flag, click the flag; or
type KC or KeyCite followed by a citation in the search
box at the top of the page and click Search.

94. AMERICAN LAW REPORTS
“ALR”

95. American Law Reports
• American Law Reports (ALR) delivers an objective, in-
depth analysis of your specific legal issue, together with a
complete list of every case – in every jurisdiction – that
discusses it.
• With thousands of attorney-authored articles covering the
entire breadth of U.S. law, ALR saves you time by taking
you deeper on a topic, faster.
• Use ALR to:
• Quickly get up to speed in an unfamiliar area of law.
• Locate all relevant case law in one easy step.
• Determine which cases are controlling and understand why.

100. Searching for “Illinois v.
Caballes” within these
1,773 results

101. Illinois v. Caballes is
highlighted in purple.

102. Introductory paragraph in ALR

105. QUESTIONS?
1-800-REF-ATTY (1-800-733-2889) or
ASK-A-LIBRARIAN!