Westlaw, Do Tell

Being new to the wonderful world of law librarianship, I am always intrigued by the things I learn day to day. Sometimes, I’ll pick up new skills from interacting with my colleagues, and other times I’ll simply stumble upon something neat. Take, for example, my recent experience with using Westlaw. In the first month of the new year, I have picked up some useful tips and tricks that I think everyone should know. (And, if you already knew them, why haven’t you shared them?)

Tip 1: Boolean Searching

Now, for most people reading this blog, I’ll assume y’all knew about this tip. But, for the uninitiated, did you know Westlaw does not make “Terms and Connector” searching a default? I sure didn’t.

During a teacher’s meeting, a weekly held meeting with all the teaching law librarians, my supervisor made the comment in passing. With a confused look, I asked her to clarify. She then walked me and my colleagues through the steps. I’ve since shared the steps with my students. And, for y’all’s benefit, I’ve included the steps below:

1. Log on to Westlaw, 

2. Click the little person to the left of “Sign out” at the top of your homepage,

3. Select “Preferences,”

4. Click on “Search,”

5. In the right-hand column, under “Always run these as Terms and Connectors searches,” select the first checkbox “Searches containing AND, OR, &, or quoted phrases,” and

6. Then click the blue “Save” button at the bottom of the section.

Tip 2: Law Review Citations

One of the more enjoyable aspects of my current position is the amount of interaction I get with students. Specifically, I get to work with journal students. Sometimes it’s providing one-off presentations to the entire journal, other times it’s just to help with Bluebook citations.

While having a one-on-one meeting with a journal student, I noticed all of their case citations were string cites. Also, the citations were heavily underlined. When I asked the student how the citations were drafted, I was simply told that they were from using the copy citation feature from Westlaw.

Unfortunately, Westlaw defaults the citation style for “legal briefs.” And, trying to compare those citations to law review citations using the Bluebook can be very time-consuming. Add that to how confusing the Bluebook citation style is, and you have a recipe for a lot of head scratching.

Fortunately, I will share directions on how to change the default citation style on Westlaw below:

1. Log on to Westlaw,

2. Click the little person to the left of “Sign out” at the top of your homepage,

3. Click on “Preferences,”

4. On the left-hand column, select “Copy Citation & Copy with Reference,”

5. Under “Citation style” in the right-hand column, select the radio button next to “Law reviews,” and

6. Then click the blue “Save” button at the bottom of the section.

Tip 3: Quickly Copy a Citation

This tip came out during a one-on-one meeting with my supervisor. She and I met after class to discuss something a bit more analog, when suddenly she asked a peculiar question. She asked me how I teach students to copy citations in Westlaw. I immediately answered,

1. Everyone should go to a desired document,
2. Take their cursor and highlight text within the document, and

3. Select “Copy with Reference (standard).”

My supervisor then turned her computer screen around and showed me a different way. Below is how she copies a citation from Westlaw:

1. Go to a desired case, statute, or etc.,
2. Once on the “Document” tab of the webpage, click drop-down arrow the chain link icon, and 

3. Then select the “Copy citation.”

Although both take the same amount of steps, I found her way much cleaner. First, she does not have to fiddle around with Westlaw’s cumbersome UI. Second, when needing to copy a citation, a person may not care about grabbing text from the legal material. Rather, the person may just need a citation. Last, her way requires less follow-up steps. She simply does not have to paste the citation and remove additional, unnecessary words.

Regardless of how I learn something, the on-the-job training has been really rewarding. Along with the few tidbits I’ve shared above, I’m sure there are countless other tips and tricks that I can learn. Feel free to share some of your lesser known, but useful tips in the comments!

By Aamir Abdullah

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Notes Between Us (NBU) is a blog about conversations and topics of interest to the writers. The writers are expressing their personal opinions solely. The essays represent their personal beliefs and not that of their workplaces or any organization they are associated with.