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Westlaw Campus Research Guide

Learn how to use the database Westlaw Campus Research

What is a Case?

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 Westlaw.

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 Westlaw.


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.

Finding Cases

Search by Citation or Case Name

Advanced Search Option

The Advanced Search template also allows for citation searching. Click on advanced search, scroll down to search by document fields. You can search by citation, case name, or document title in the fields.

Document Field advanced search option

Main Search Box

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

citation search of 127 sct 2162

 

  • 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.  For example, type Brown v. Board of Education

seach by case name example of Brown v. Board of Education

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.
  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
  4. On the search results page, select Cases under the View filter to limit your search to cases only

search for medical malpractice highlighting cases in the filter panel on the left side of screen

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 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. A corresponding 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.

browse cases option on Westlaw homepage

Cases content page