Winning Research Skills - Westlaw

Searching Case Law Databases on Westlaw
On Westlaw, you can use the judge field (ju) to search for opinions authored by a particular
judge. To search for cases in which a particular judge wrote a concurring opinion or a dissenting
opinion, use the concurring field (con) or the dissenting field (dis), respectively.
Attorney Field
When you are looking for cases in which a particular individual was attorney of record, use the
attorney field (at). For example, to search for federal cases in which David Iglesias represented a
party, access the All Federal Cases database (ALLFEDS) and type a search such as
at(iglesias /3 david)
One of the cases in the result is shown in Figure 10.7. Note the search terms highlighted in the
attorney field.
Figure 10.7: Result of a search restricted to the attorney field
You can also search for the names of law firms or law offices in the attorney field.
Court Field
You can use the court field (co) to restrict your Westlaw search to cases issued by a particular
court or courts. For example, to restrict your search to cases issued by the highest courts of all
states, access the All State Cases database (ALLSTATES) and add co(high) to your query.
Connect the court field restriction to your Terms and Connectors query with the AND
connector (&).
For federal court information, refer to Appendix B. For state court information, refer to
Appendix C.
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