GBS205 - Legal, Ethical, and Regulatory Issues in Business

Using the Home Page

Thomson Reuters WestLaw simplifies your starting point for legal research. At the home page, you can use the search box at the top of the page to find a document by citation or name or search for documents. You can also browse content using the links in the Browse section.

Retrieving Legal Documents by Citation

Most legal authority, such as a court decision, statute, or administrative regulation, has a citation; that is, a unique reference to the document. If you have a citation, type it in the search box at the top the page and click Search.

To retrieve a citation,

For example, to retrieve the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which has a citation of 130 S.Ct. 876, type 130 sct 876 in the search box and click Search (Figure 2).

To find multiple documents by citation,

Type the citations in the text box separated by semicolons and click Search. For example,
type 127 sct 2162; 93 sct 705.

To retrieve a statute,

For example, section 2614 of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which has a citation of 29 U.S.C.A. § 2614, type 29 usca 2614 in the search box and click Search. To retrieve a state statute such as section 56.21 of the California Civil Code, which has a citation of Cal. Civ. Code § 56.21, type cal civ code 56.21 and click Search.

Retrieving Case Law Documents by Name, 

You can also retrieve court decisions by party name. To retrieve a case by party name, type one or more parties’ names or the case title in the text box and click Search. For example, type roe v. wade.

When you run a search on WestlawNext, you don’t need to select a database. Your search is automatically run across the following eight core content categories:

• Cases

• Statutes and Court Rules

• Regulations

• Administrative Decisions and Guidance

• Secondary Sources

• Briefs

• Proposed and Enacted Legislation

• Proposed and Adopted Regulations

The core content categories that will be most helpful for your research include Cases, Statutes and Court Rules, and Regulations. Following are brief descriptions of these categories:

• Cases are the written opinions of appellate and lower court judges.

• Statutes are laws passed by a state legislature or the United States Congress.

• Court rules have the force of law and govern practice and procedure in the various courts.
   Examples include the Federal Rules of Evidence as well as any local rules that a court issues.

• Regulations include state and federal agency regulations such as the Code of Federal Regulations.

To search for documents, follow these steps: 

1. Type search terms describing your issue in the search box at the top of the page (Figure 3). If you are familiar with Boolean searching, you can also type a Terms and Connectors query. WestlawNext recognizes whichever search format you use.

2. Leave the default jurisdiction or click the arrow to display the Jurisdiction selector. Select up to three jurisdictions and click
Save (Figure 4).

3. Click Search.

WestSearch, the WestlawNext search engine, examines all core legal content for the jurisdiction you choose. Core content comprises cases, statutes and court rules, regulations, federal administrative materials, U.S. Supreme Court briefs, and secondary sources. The result is organized by content category, with the most relevant documents listed first.

What is a Case?

Cases are the written opinions of appellate and lower court judges. Appellate courts are courts that have the authority to review decisions of lower courts. Opinions from appellate courts can be crucial to understanding a legal issue because these opinions determine how lower courts decide similar issues in the future. Federal and state appellate court opinions and federal lower court opinions are on WestlawNext.

Note that for most state courts, it is unusual for lower or trial court decisions (as opposed to the appellate decisions described above) to be published, either online or in print. This means that even if a trial court decision is in the news because of an unusual ruling or a large award of damages, it may not be on WestlawNext.

What Are Editorial Enhancements?

Court decisions published in West’s National Reporter System feature several editorial enhancements created by Thomson Reuters attorney-editors. These enhancements help you understand the significance of the case and help you retrieve cases that discuss a particular point of law.

• Synopsis. A synopsis is a paragraph-length summary of the facts and the main legal issue in a case. Read the synopsis of a case you’ve retrieved to get a quick understanding of what the case was about and how a legal issue was decided by the court. You can add a synopsis field to your advanced Boolean search to retrieve only cases that contain a specific term in the synopsis field.

• Headnotes. Headnotes are short summaries of each legal issue discussed in the case. Because the headnotes are succinct expressions of the legal issues raised by the interaction of the facts in a case and the rules of law, you can efficiently search for key terms by adding a headnote field to your advanced Boolean search to retrieve only cases that contain a specific term in the topic or headnotes field.

• West Topic and Key Numbers. Each headnote is classified under one or more topics and key numbers in the West Key Number System, which Thomson Reuters editors use to index case law. You can add a topic field to your advanced Boolean search to focus your legal research on particular issues.

To find a case by citation or name, do one of the following:

• To find a case by citation, type the citation in the search box at the top of the page and click Search. For example, type 127 sct 2162.

• To find multiple cases by citation, type the citations, separated by semicolons, in the search box and click Search.

• To find a case by party name, type one or more parties’ names or the case title in the search box, change the jurisdiction if necessary, and click Search (Figure 10). For example, type rumsfeld v. hamdan.

Searching for Cases

To search for cases, follow these steps:

1. Type terms describing your issue in the search box at the top of the page. If you are familiar with Boolean searching, you can also type a Terms and Connectors query. WestlawNext recognizes whichever search format you use.

2. Leave the default jurisdiction or click the arrow to display the Jurisdiction selector. Select up to three jurisdictions and click Save.

3. Click Search to search all core legal content, including cases. 

Browsing Cases

In addition to running a search, you can use the Browse feature to retrieve cases. Click the category links on the tabs in the Browse section on the home page. You can retrieve cases in several ways from the Browse section:

• Click the All Content tab, then click Cases to display the Cases page (Figure 11), which organizes cases under Federal Cases by Court, Federal Cases by Circuit, Cases by State, Cases by U.S. Territory, and Cases by Topic. Click the appropriate links to retrieve the cases you want.

• Click the Federal Materials tab to retrieve U.S. Supreme Court cases or cases from federal courts in a specific circuit or state.

• Click the State Materials tab to view a list of states. Click a state name to retrieve cases from state or federal courts in that state.

When you click a link for a specific court, such as U.S. Supreme Court, a list of the 10 most recent cases from that court is displayed (Figure 12). A corresponding tabbed text box is displayed at the top of the page. You can search all cases from the court by typing a search in this text box and clicking Search.