Winning Research Skills - Westlaw

Choosing a Digest That Meets Your Needs
West publishes several digests, each designed to fill specific needs.
West’s digests Coverage
State
Regional
Federal
(lower federal courts and the Supreme Court)
Fundamentals of Case Law
All states except Delaware, Nevada, and Utah. For
Delaware, use the Atlantic Digest. For Nevada and
Utah, use the Pacific Digest.
Four current regional digests: Atlantic Digest, North
Western Digest, Pacific Digest, South Eastern Digest.
Use the state digests for states not covered in the
regional digests.
Federal Digest, all cases prior to 1939
Modern Federal Practice Digest, 1939–1961
Federal Practice Digest 2d, 1961–1975
Federal Practice Digest 3d, 1975–1988
Federal Practice Digest 4th, 1984–present
Supreme Court United States Supreme Court Digest, 1754–present
American Digest System
(all cases, both federal and state)
Century Digest, 1658–1896
First–Eleventh Decennial Digests, 1897–2004
General Digest 11th, 2004–present
Logically, you would retrieve federal cases (including Supreme Court cases) from one of the
various federal digests, and you would use the United States Supreme Court Digest to retrieve
only Supreme Court cases. If you want all cases from all jurisdictions, use the American Digest
System, which consists of the Century Digest, the Decennial Digest, and the General Digest.
This system has enormous scope: it includes all reported American cases, state and federal, from
1658 to the present. To make this digest manageable, West has divided it into five- or 10-year
periods. West updates the Decennial Digest with a series of bound volumes known as the
General Digest (11th Series); a volume is published approximately every month. When you are
using a digest and you see the statement “For other cases, see the Decennial Digest and
Westlaw,” you should follow this instruction.
If you are researching state law, you should select a state digest since it will provide you with the
quickest way to determine case law in one state. A regional digest would be useful when you
need cases from neighboring jurisdictions. A good rule of thumb is to always use the smallest
possible digest.
Now that you have the correct digest for your jurisdiction, you need to learn how to use it.
Starting with One Good Case
If you are lucky enough to know one relevant case, you can easily expand your research by using
the West Key Number System and West digests. From your case, determine the relevant topic
and key numbers and then look in a digest to find cases that have headnotes classified under
those topic and key numbers.
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