Winning Research Skills - Westlaw

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Chapter 11 Searching Legislative and Regulatory Databases on Westlaw Law students spend most of their time studying cases, but many practicing attorneys use legislative and regulatory materials more often than case law. If you learn how to research statutes and regulations while you are a law student, you will have an advantage when you begin your legal career. This chapter explains how you can use Westlaw to research a wide variety of federal and state legislative and regulatory databases. Westlaw also offers municipal materials from selected U.S. cities and an expanding array of statutory and regulatory materials from the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries. Retrieving a Statute or Regulation When You Know Its Citation Retrieving Current Materials When you want to retrieve a current statute or regulation and you know its citation, use the Find service. Remember that when you retrieve a statute using Find, you retrieve the annotated document, where available. For more information on using Find, refer to Chapter 7. Retrieving Historical Materials When you want to retrieve an historical statute or regulation and you know its citation, access the appropriate database and search in the citation field. For example, if you want to retrieve the 1990 version of 20 U.S.C.A. § 1136, access the United States Code Annotated 1990 database (USCA90) and type the following Terms and Connectors query: ci(20 +5 1136) The +5 instructs Westlaw to retrieve documents in which 20 precedes 1136 by five terms or fewer. Tips for Searching Legislative and Regulatory Materials Databases ■ Most Westlaw databases containing legislative and regulatory materials can be searched using either the Terms and Connectors or the Natural Language search method. For a complete, current list of Westlaw databases, refer to the Westlaw Directory. Winning Research Skills 129
Chapter 11 ■ Because statutory and regulatory information changes frequently, make it a habit to check Scope to view current coverage information for a database, along with search tips and explanations of related materials and fields available for the database. ■ When you retrieve a statute on Westlaw, check the Current through line at the end of the document. Click Currentness, if available, in the prelim field to jump to this information or scroll to the end of the document. ■ KeyCite—the citation research service on Westlaw—can help you make sure that your statute or regulation is current. A red or yellow KeyCite status flag in the header of a displayed document or alongside an item in a list of citations indicates that KeyCite information is available that should be investigated. (For more information on using KeyCite, refer to Chapter 12). West Annotated Statutes Annotations to statutory text are created by West attorney-editors and provide information that can help you understand and apply the statute. For example, choose an annotated database when you ■ want to view detailed information regarding textual changes in a statute ■ want to browse summaries of cases and administrative decisions construing a statute ■ are looking for a term or phrase that may not be used in the statutory text itself, e.g., lemon law When you are searching for specific language in statutory text only, choose an unannotated database. Federal Statutes Annotated federal statutes are available on Westlaw in the United States Code Annotated database (USCA). USCA contains the text of federal statutes as published in the official United States Code, along with ■ notes of cases and attorney general decisions ■ references to regulations and secondary sources ■ historical information regarding the enactment, amendment, revision, and repeal of statutory sections ■ cross-references to other sections within the Code The unannotated United States Code is available on Westlaw in the United States Code database (USC). 130 Winning Research Skills
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Winning Research Skills PROFESSIONA
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ALR, American Digest System, Am Jur
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Contents Introduction - - - - - - -
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Administrative Decisions . . . . .
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Adding Related Concepts . . . . . .
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Using an Index to Retrieve Statutes
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Chapter 15 The Research Process-Con
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Chapter 1 A Short History of Legal
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A Short History of Legal Research c
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Chapter 2 After a slip opinion is m
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Chapter 2 ■ Where the official re
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Chapter 2 On Westlaw, the All U.S.
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Chapter 2 Systematic editorial trea
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Chapter 2 A Westlaw Citation If an
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Chapter 2 Parts of a Case Understan
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Chapter 2 If you have many cases to
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Chapter 2 Using Case Digests Digest
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Chapter 2 Using the Descriptive-Wor
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Chapter 2 Figure 2.9: Headnote para
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Chapter 2 Using the Table of Cases
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Chapter 2 Case Citation Research As
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Chapter 3 Fundamentals of Statutory
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Fundamentals of Statutory Law Legis
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Fundamentals of Statutory Law For s
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Fundamentals of Statutory Law When
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Chapter 4 Fundamentals of Administr
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Figure 4.1: Authority and source no
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Fundamentals of Administrative Law
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Fundamentals of Administrative Law
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Chapter 5 Series Years Coverage ALR
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Chapter 5 references to West topics
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Chapter 6 Getting Started on Westla
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Getting Started on Westlaw 3. Selec
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Getting Started on Westlaw Receive
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Getting Started on Westlaw Deliveri
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Chapter 7 Retrieving a Document on
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Retrieving a Document on Westlaw by
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Using the Citation Field Retrieving
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Retrieving a Document on Westlaw by
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Chapter 8 Basics of Westlaw Searchi
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Figure 8.2: Westlaw Directory Basic
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Basics of Westlaw Searching (BERKLA
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Page 108 and 109: Chapter 9 Browsing Documents on Wes
Page 110 and 111: Your Search Result Display Browsing
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Page 148 and 149: Field abbreviation Restricting Your
Page 152 and 153: Using an Index to Retrieve Statutes
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An example of an ALR annotation is
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Secondary Sources, News, and Nonleg
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WestClip Secondary Sources, News, a
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Chapter 14 Delivering Documents on
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Selecting Default Delivery Settings
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Each entry in the Print/Delivery Ma
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Chapter 15 Step 3: Budget Your Time
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Appendix A West Digest Topics and T
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213 Innkeepers 216 Inspection 217 I
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Appendix B Federal Courts of Appeal
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Appendix C State Courts Information
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Index -A- abbreviations 84 accessin
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multiple database searching 75 Rece
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statutes and regulations indexes on
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previous section 94, 101, 134 prici
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United States courts of appeals 12
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