The Reference Attorneys are still receiving a number of calls about the ECO-Gift Card Act, Public Law 111-209, the Amendment to the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (“CCARD”).  This new Public Law strikes out Section 403 in Title IV of CCARD, found in Public Law 111-24, and replaces it with new language.  Procedurally, this Act works differently than what most attorneys who do legislative research are accustomed.

Unlike a number of laws that passed by Congress amending existing statutes, this Act amends the Public Law itself – not the codified statute.  The only statutory reference you will see about the ECO-Gift Card Act will be in the KeyCite History for 15 U.S.C.A. 1693L-1.  

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We’ve been reading a bit about the University of Akron School of Law Guides for WesltawNext and LexisNexis Online Research (pdf).  Although Westlaw User Guides are free, I love the idea of  librarians putting these together for all the reasons articulated in the guide.  Of course, I’d not be doing my job, though,  if I didn’t point out the following correction:

Section IIA(2):  In fact, Westlaw searches irregular plurals unless you use the pound symbol (#).  So, your search for “goose,” should deliver “geese.” 

and, the following clarification:

Section II Searching Concepts:  This section describes standard boolean searching on Westlaw.  There will always be room for traditional boolean searching.  Very often, traditional boolean logic is essential to complete a research task (e.g. how many times was the phrase “conceptual separability” used in the Ninth Circuit?).  This, you can do on WestlawNext.  And, I think it’s important for students to understand boolean logic.  So, without interfering with the pedogogical concerns of our librarians, let me say that I usually begin my WestlawNext research with a plain language query that takes advantage of the new WestSearch algorithm.  The benefit here is primarily efficiency.  If  I needed to know about the doctrine of conceptual separability, for example, I simply run the phrase in the search box:

and, this tip:

Section IIA(3):  If you are using boolean, the pound symbol is also very useful for searching terms typically too common to be searched.  Using the pound symbol forces Westlaw to run a search to otherwise would prefer not to run. For example, if I’m often looking for variations of the phrase “before trial”, try, #before +2 trial.

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While it may have been a while since Bernie Madoff was front-page news, his escapades are still a popular research topic for attorneys.  The Reference Attorneys continue to receive a fair number of calls concerning litigation involving Mr. Madoff.

While a DOCK-ALL or ALLNEWS search is probably best (remember to truncate Bernie as bern!)  we’ve also had one or two customers asking if Westlaw has any Madoff-specific databases.  While no such database is currently available for Bernie Madoff, Westlaw does have several databases focused on famous, popular, or otherwise “notable” cases.

 Perhaps the best example of a notable case would be the O.J. Simpson trial, which has a few databases dedicated to it: OJ-COMMENT includes case commentary, while OJ-TRANS is comprised of trial transcripts and other documents.  There are similar databases available for the Unabomber (UBABOMB-TRANS), Timothy McVeigh (MCVEIGH-TRANS and MCVEIGH-DP), and the even the JKF assassination (JFK-TRANS).  If violence isn’t your thing, you can also check out MICROSOFT-TRANS and MICROAPP-DOC, which cover the Microsoft antitrust litigation.

 If you’re ever curious if we have a database specific to a notable trial, try typing the name of the trial’s defendant in Search for a Database.  For example, in the case of Bernie Madoff try entering “Madoff” in Search for a Database.  Westlaw will tell you that you’ve entered an invalid database.  Typing “OJ Simpson,” however, will get you several options to choose from.

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A frequent task Summer Associates have been faced with is trying to determine what precisely has happened with federal statutes over time.  On Westlaw we have the United States Code Annotated back through 1990 (USCAXX, XX= 2 digit year), but it is important to note that we also have United States Public Laws (US-PL) , and The United States Statutes at Large (STATLRG)back to the creation of the United States.  Many of the Acts in the Public Laws and Statutes at Large are not codified, of course.

The Statutes at Large can be interesting from a historical perspective as well. A couple of interesting acts I have run across include:

• Mary Todd Lincoln was granted the Franking Privilege –  14 Stat. 3  (the Franking Privilege entitles you to free postage). 
•  Original pay rates of Congress – 1 Stat. 70  were $6 per day, but only days that they attended!
• The President’s pay rate –  1 Stat 72 ( 25,000 which would be $628,000 in 2009 dollars using the Consumer Price Index Method). 
• As well as the first secret society incorporated by an Act of Congress in 1893 28 Stat. 96, the Knights of Pythias.

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Amid the debate surrounding illegal immigration and the recent Arizona immigration law comes news that “birthright citizenship” may be under attack.  Birthright citizenship is the granting of United States citizenship to children born on U.S. soil, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.  The right comes from the Fourteenth Amendment:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

 The story linked above includes quotes from Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina stemming from an appearance on Fox News.  Suppose you wanted to go further and get a transcript of the entire interview.  You can, using the news databases on Westlaw.  Westlaw not only has coverage of a large number of print news sources, but also provides transcripts from television news.  Because we know Senator Graham’s comments were made on Fox, we can search the FOX database (had we been unaware of the network involved, we could have cast a wider net with the ALLNEWS database).  A search in FOX for “LINDSEY GRAHAM” & da(7/2010) returns 13 documents, one of which is the appearance that produced the quotes mentioned above.

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ABC News recently posted an article dealing with audio recordings and the police.  This is a trend that has garnered much attention lately, essentially the states wiretap laws break down along a couple of lines, those that require both parties consent before recording a conversation, and those that require only one parties consent (like the federal law). 

In some states police have been using statutes that require both parties consent to record a conversation to arrest and charge individuals who have audio recorded encounters with the police.

When looking for statutes such as these, it can very often be hard to find the correct sections.  We may know the topic of the statute, but not any terms that are necessarily going to occur within the section.  For this type of inquiry the statute index is the best. 

On Westlaw, if you go to the search window, or table of contents for a statutes database, you can click “Statutes Index” on the upper right.  This is different from the table of contents because it is a topical organization of the statutes, if you look under “Eavesdropping” or “Wiretapping” for instance you should be able to find these statutes that are cited as preventing audio recording. 

If you are interested in a 50 state survey that breaks down every states wiretapping laws, you can find a comprehensive breakdown here in the 50 state surveys database.

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A popular request these days is, ‘how do I find a judge’s reversal rate?’  Westlaw has Judicial Reversal Reports online.  Judicial Reversal Reports provide a judge’s reversal rate with trends by case type, appellate panel, and other filters.   Judicial Reversal Reports can be found in a number of places on Westlaw:  Site Map, Profiler,  and the Litigation Tab. 

Click Site Map at top right of Westlaw.com screen.  Click Judicial Reversal Report in right column under Find a Person area. Simply type the Judge’s name in the box and click Search Westlaw.

Below is an example of what a partial  Judicial Reversal Report might look like.

Customize This Report  

Appealed Decisions ( January 2005 – July 2010)

 

Appealed Decisions 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Total Affirmed 11 5 7 7 1 1 32 Affirmed in Part/Reversed in Part 0 1 1 1 0 1 4 Remanded 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 Affirmed as Modified 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 Petition Denied 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 Affirmed/Total Appealed* 11/11 5/6 7/11 7/9 1/1 1/2 32/40

*This report includes information from only those appeals where the lower court judge is identified in the decision.

Case Types ( January 2005 – July 2010)

 

Case Types 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Total Criminal Justice 3 6 5 1 0 1 16 Domestic Relations/Family Law 7 0 5 1 0 0 13 Employment/Labor 0 0 0 3 0 0 3 Constitutional Law 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 Government 1 0 1 0 0 0 2 Real Property 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 Communications 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 Health 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 Legal Services 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 Science, Computers, and Technology 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 Other 0 0 0 3 1 1 5 Total 14 7 12 10 1 3 47

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A few days ago, I had a discussion regarding searching the dissenting opinion field on a Westlaw case (a query in the dissent searches the entire dissenting opinion NOT just the judge’s name).  We talked further about fielded searching generally.  I realized that what’s second-nature to Reference Attorneys might bear highlighting here.

In simplest terms, almost all Westlaw documents are broken down into their component parts (fields); title, preliminary, opinion, text, author, date, and so on.  This is as true for cases and statutes as it is for private letter rulings, patents, and security filings.   As a result, we can search for documents by date, author, etc.   Of course, documents from such disparate sources will have unique fields.  To find available field identifiers and their meaning, access the database’s  ’scope screen.’  That’s the icon with the black ‘i’ in the silver circle.  From here, click the Searching and Fields link to review the table of available fields.

In addition to fields inherent to documents, Westlaw editors add their own serachable fields (e.g. headnotes).   The video below is a bit dated but does a great job outlining a day in the life of a Westlaw case from reciept through the enahcement process.

Finally, there are also helpful user guides on the west.thomson.com site (Linked on the right side of this blog as well).  For example, check out the Stautes Field Quick Reference Guide.

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“I’m looking for a particular phrase and my search returned a lot of cases, but they’re only mentioning the term in passing instead of discussing it.  What can I do?”

I’m getting this question a lot and I have two solutions that usually solve the problem.

First I use term frequency to make sure the case is mentioning your term more than once.  Under the Search Westlaw button is a link for Term Frequency in many databases.  Clicking on term frequency gives you the option to require your terms and decide how often they must appear in the document.  By forcing your terms to appear multiple times you’re more likely to get cases discussing them in detail.

The other option is to require your term in the headnotes of the case.  This too means you’re likely to get cases that discuss your terms more thoroughly.  For example, if you’re searching for breach of contract, enter HE(breach! /2 contract).  Then, add additional terms;  HE(breach! /2 contract) & “unclean hands” will search for any case with breach of contract in the headnotes and unclean hands anywhere in the case.

*Editors note available in the comments //

We have had many Summer Associates contact the Reference Attorneys asking how to limit their searches to a particular court.  Westlaw does has very granular case law databases — meaning that you can always get to a particular state, or US District Courts within a state.  If you need to isolate your results to a particular court within that state, you will need to add a court restrictor to your search. 

The Reference Attorneys are always available to help you put together a court restrictor, but if you are the kind of person who wants to have the information yourself, you can print out a free user guide.  It is entitled “Research Tips for Case Law“, and will teach you how to create a court restrictor for almost any particular court.

We have hundreds of User Guides, all of which can be downloaded for free, and sometimes you can get a free copy shipped to you as well.  You can find those user guides here.

One last note regarding court restrictors.  On WestlawNext they are entirely unnecessary!  When searching on WestlawNext you can limit your search to any court you would like simply by checking appropriate boxes.  If you are interested in learning more about WestlawNext, you can take a tour here.

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