Legal Solutions  Blog

Too much news to read? You can use the “Limit Your Search using SmartTerms” in many news databases to limit your results by checking boxes for Industry, Company, Subject or Location. You can even use combinations of these criteria by clicking on the arrows in the middle to add terms to the area on the right. (Provided [...]

You can change Client IDs on the fly – without having to sign off and then sign back on to Westlaw. Simply click “Preferences” in the upper right, then “Change Client ID” on the left. Enter the new Client ID and click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen. Now all further research in the current session [...]

Westlaw tip: The credit field lists the Federal Register documents that created or amended the particular section of the CFR. The credit field in the CFR is not labeled CREDIT(S) as in the USCA, but instead is set apart by brackets around the FR citations. The source field indicates the federal register documents that created or amended the [...]

West Find&Print is a great way to pull up multiple cases at one time. You can access this feature on Westlaw by clicking on the Find&Print link at the top of the screen to pull up to 20 citations at once. To pull up lists of up to 99 citations, you can access findprint.westlaw.com and use the same [...]

As the highest judicial body in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court has a deep and rich history, and it’s often featured in our Today in Legal History blog posts. We’ve collected 15 Insider posts from 2010 that provide an intriguing (and entirely random) timeline of some of the Supreme Court’s most momentous milestones, along with a [...]

Westaw tip: Trial court filings are a great way to search for procedural issues that can be difficult to find in caselaw. They can easily be accessed through the Court Docs link at the top of the Westlaw screen. Click on the link for your jurisdiction on the left under Pleadings, Motions and Memoranda. (Provided by West Reference Attorneys [...]

WestlawNext search strategies, significant events in legal history, and social networking were some our most popular blog themes in 2010. Here’s a ranked list of the 10 Westlaw Insider posts that tallied the most page views during the past year. (1) Today in 1971: 26th Amendment gives 18-year-olds the right to vote (2) Q&A: Using Terms and Connectors in [...]

Soon after Virginia joined the Confederacy in April 1861, 48 counties in western Virginia broke away and formed their own provisional state government. But it wasn’t until the final day of 1862, a full two weeks after Congress approved statehood for West Virginia, that Abraham Lincoln signed the Act that would make it so. West Virginia was [...]

Q: I like to use WestlawNext on my laptop, but I sometimes have trouble reading the small text. Is there a way to make it more readable? A: There are several ways you can modify your WestlawNext display to make it easier to read, including the following: Fullscreen mode: To display a document across the full width of [...]

A Texas woman is suing Matrixx Initiatives, Inc., the maker of the popular Zicam line of “homeopathic” cold remedies, alleging that she lost her sense of smell after using the now-discontinued Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Gel Spray. According to the complaint, the plaintiff “experienced burning pain” and then suffered a permanent loss of her senses of [...]

Now there’s a new way to get the legal news you need – no subscription required. It’s called Westlaw News & Insight, and it’s actually four distinct websites designed to help attorneys keep pace with current events in these practice areas: National Litigation Bankruptcy California Litigation Securities Litigation Here are today’s top stories from the National Litigation site. In the Madoff case, [...]

The FORMFINDER database on Westlaw can help you find your desired form more efficiently. The FORMFINDER database includes only actual forms and searches hundreds of thousands of forms available on Westlaw. The template allows you to easily search by state and/or practice area.

(Provided by West Reference Attorneys)

Q. I frequently use the Search Within Results filter to narrow my result list. Can you suggest some other filters to try? A. Certainly! When browsing cases, try the Key Number filter to narrow down to very discrete points of law. (Note: This is especially powerful when used in conjunction with topic pages .) When viewing statutes, use the Title filter to narrow [...]

The War of 1812 came to an official close 196 years ago today, as delegates from war-weary Britain and the financially strapped United States signed the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium on Christmas Eve, 1814. The treaty itself didn’t seem groundbreaking – in fact, under the terms of the agreement, no boundaries were changed, and no [...]

A veterans group has filed suit against the government alleging that it wrongfully discharged 26,000 Iraq and Afghanistan vets as having long-standing mental problems instead of treating them for combat injuries, thus saving more than $12 billion. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court on December 15, charges that since 2001, the DoD has systematically discharged [...]

When you need the law governing an issue in a particular practice area, you likely need more than one document type. In fact, you probably want everything you can get your hands on: cases, statutes, regulations, administrative decisions, and other sources. But you likely need documents in one legal area – not every legal area. Here’s a [...]

Trial attorney John G. Browning is the author of a new West title, “ The Lawyer’s Guide to Social Networking: Understanding Social Media’s Impact on the Law .”  In addition to his work as a lawyer, Mr. Browning is a legal journalist whose work has appeared in newspapers and magazines in his home state of Texas and across the [...]

Westlaw tip: Looking for the elements of a cause of action? Sometimes the simplest concepts are the most difficult to find. It looks complicated, but this “power” search string does a pretty effective job at bringing back the elements of a cause of action. Try it out next time you need the elements to an action. ELEMENTS [...]

Now there’s a new way to get the legal news you need – no subscription required. It’s called Westlaw News & Insight, and it’s actually four distinct websites designed to help attorneys keep pace with current events in these practice areas: National Litigation Bankruptcy California Litigation Securities Litigation Here are today’s top stories from the National Litigation site. Toyota to pay maximum [...]

Where do lawyers and legal scholars turn for explanations of federal civil or criminal procedure? For almost a century, they’ve turned to the time-honored Cyclopedia of Federal Procedure , cited as authority in hundreds of secondary sources and more than 400 federal and state cases since 1928. This resource is a guide to civil and criminal procedures [...]