I had a phone call recently with a WestlawNext subscriber who was having difficulty with her research project. She was in court at the time and did not have access to a computer. During the course of using WestlawNext, I mentioned our mobile platform. We have previously mentioned our new mobile platform for WestlawNext here, but haven’t gone in-depth on some of the features included in our mobile version. This week the West Reference Attorneys will feature a series of posts demonstrating some of the tools you may find most helpful on this mobile platform. The tools highlighted this week are samples from customer requests and ones the West Reference Attorneys have found most helpful.

WestlawNext mobile is accessible on any smart phone with internet/data capabilities. You can find specifications and requirements on our website here. The WestlawNext platform is, by far, the most complete offering to date. Many of the features you enjoy on WestlawNext are included in the mobile version as well.

By entering http://next.westlaw.com on your mobile device (I used my Blackberry Bold), WestlawNext will automatically detect your phone and adjust accordingly.

Once you are signed in, you will notice access to the familiar search functions of WestlawNext, your folders, and our extensive library of content.

The customer I was speaking with was searching for hearsay rule in Texas to exclude testimony. Running a WestSearch on that phrase yields 505 cases, but WestlawNext recognizes the rule and offers it up in a nice, easy-to-click blue box.

When we clicked on the rule, we saw the full text of the rule as well the Commentary, Related Research, and Notes of Decisions.

Within just a few seconds we had not only been able to find the appropriate rule, but also case law to support her argument in court.  Access is included in your WestlawNext subscription and you can bill for the research time and retreive your searches and documents when you return to WestlawNext on your regular computer.

Tomorrow will feature how to empty all your file boxes for trial into your handheld device. Also, please let us know if you find the mobile version to be particularly helpful in your practice or in court. We’d love to hear your stories and share them (with your permission of course).

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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A sad news item in “today’s paper”: Marvin Isley (of the Isley Brothers) has died.  Not ringing any bells?  How ‘bout “It’s your thing” (do whatcha wanna do…) or “Who’s that Lady”??  Anyway, good Motown/early 70’s stuff.  Evidently he most likely died from diabetes-related complications and suffered quite a bit with this, and even had both legs amputated as a result.  Hearing about his death rang another bell—faintly—for me, and I thought that the group had either won or lost a pretty big copyright infringement suit regarding one of their songs.  Let’s say you found yourself where I was, looking for a case with just a few scraps of information to go on.  I just made sure that my case databases were set to “All State & Federal” and typed in a short, yet somewhat descriptive search: isley brothers copyright infringement.  I then clicked into the “Cases” category, which I have set to list in order of relevance, and what do we have here?

Looks like the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a $5.4 million jury verdict against (*gasp*) Michael Bolton after he infringed on their “Love Is A Wonderful Thing” tune.  A very nice example of how easy WestlawNext can be: I did not have to choose a database or try to formulate a complicated Terms and Connectors query, yet I got to the case I was wondering about after typing just four words.  It’s indeed a Wonderful Thing.