Legal Solutions  Blog

Here’s an enhancement that can potentially save a litigation practitioner time, money, and frustration. Before, you could view exhibits for a particular filing by clicking the exhibit number hyperlink (where available) from the docket document.  You could only retrieve one exhibit at a time. The image view was not saved in your WestlawNext history, nor were [...]

Criminal law has seen many changes in the last few years, particularly in areas such as the application of Miranda, the exclusionary rule, and the admissibility of the defendant’s prior misconduct. Our response: As of August 1, more than 400,000 headnotes have been reclassified in the West Key Number System, particularly within Criminal Law (topic 110) and [...]

As a WestlawNext user, you can select a publication or other content set on WestlawNext as a “favorite,” which currently means you create a link to a single content page and a filter you can use to narrow your search results. Now, your favorites go a step further.  In particular, you can do the following: search up [...]

In this economy, you might conclude your professional degree isn’t worth much. But your family court judge may disagree: “The largest and most hotly contested issue in a matrimonial action is many times the determination of the value of the closely held business or professional practice, and, in a number of states, the valuation of such controversial intangibles [...]

Westlaw access to motor vehicle registration data has changed. In short, the data is still on Westlaw, but additional credentialing may be required. This month, state motor vehicle registration data (state registration data for motor vehicles, trucks, trailers, motorcycles, and boats) was removed from the Asset Locator–Combined (ASSET-ALL) multibase, the state-specific Asset Locator databases (ASSET-XX, where XX is [...]

By Jay Shuck Run a few searches of patents or trademarks and you discover something: There sure are lots of patents and trademarks. In other words, management and manipulation of a massive list of patents or trademarks can be a big part of IP research. To help your IP customers with this aspect of research, two features [...]

By Jay Shuck Whether you’re drafting a prenuptial agreement or arguing a divorce case, you’re likely talking about property division. The division of property can be complicated—but greatly simplified where there is a prenuptial agreement.   See J. Thomas Oldham, Premarital Contracts are Now Enforceable, Unless…, 21 Hous. L. Rev. 757 (1984). That’s why a family law practitioner [...]

By Jay Shuck Q: I’ve created a few folders in WestlawNext that I will almost certainly keep for a long time, possibly several years. What will happen to the documents and snippets saved to those folders a year from now? Or five years from now? A: Your folders never expire —they are retained in WestlawNext for the life of your password, along with [...]

By Jay Shuck Suppose you are drafting paperwork for a motion. Suppose further you want to look at a motion and related memorandum currently on file in the court system for guidance. Will any old motion do? Of course not! You’d need a particular type of document, e.g, a motion to dismiss or a motion for remand. [...]

By Jay Shuck Diversity is usually a good thing. But diversity of language among agencies and legislatures can be a problem for compliance professionals: How do you write a query that retrieves relevant materials from institutions that use many different terms and taxonomies? The solution is Westlaw Compliance Advisor —especially in its current form. In February, some powerful [...]

The West Key Number Digest undergoing some changes. And the change—which took effect this past weekend—is pretty significant: approximately 348,000 headnotes have been reclassified by West attorney-editors. The most significant change is a “corporate restructuring:” the digest topic Corporations (topic 101) has been renamed Corporations and Business Organizations , and the topic now expands its scope to include sole proprietorships, [...]

As of earlier this month, you can now search any of 535 state and federal dockets databases on WestlawNext simply by clicking  Dockets on the Westlaw home page. Note: This is not a “bridge page,” but rather, a content category in WestlawNext. As a result, your search is simple and straightforward, thanks to the no-frills WestSearch search  engine [...]