D'Angelo Law Library Blog

WestlawNext Now Available to Law Students

University of Chicago law students and faculty should now see a new option when they log into their Westlaw accounts:  WestlawNext. WestlawNext includes most of the same content as Westlaw, but with a dramatically different interface designed to make searching easier.  Similar to Lens, it features a "one box" search interface with the search results appearing in relevancy order and divided into various facets or categories, e.g., cases, statutes, secondary sources, etc.  Stacey Acquavella, the Law School's Westlaw representative, will be offering many training sessions throughout the quarter. Users will retain access to Westlaw's traditional platform, and both services will be available throughout the academic year.

Important note: You cannot currently print to the Westlaw printers from WestlawNext. To use the Westlaw printer, you must use the traditional platform. Westlaw hopes to resolve this issue by Winter Quarter.

Summer Access for Westlaw and LexisNexis

Westlaw Summer Access: You may extend your Westlaw student password for summer use for the following academic purposes only:

• Summer Law School Classes;
• Law Review or Journal work;
• Project for a Law School Professor;
• Moot Court; or
• Unpaid Non-Profit Public Interest Internship/Externship or Pro Bono Work Required for Graduation.

 To extend your password, see http://www.lawschool.westlaw.com/registration/summerextension.asp. Westlaw student passwords may not be used during the summer for any paid summer job no matter how worthy the cause. This includes paid work for law firms, public interest groups, government agencies, judicial clerkships, internships, externships, etc. If you have any questions about Westlaw summer password extensions, please email Stacey Acquavella, our Westlaw account representative.

LexisNexis Summer Access: Students may request summer access to LexisNexis using their Law School Educational ID from June 1 to August 1, 2010 for academic purposes only. Academic purposes include, but are not limited to:

• Research skill improvement, such as improving research efficiency and sharpening your area of law research skills as you prepare for practice;
• Summer School or course work;
• Moot Court, Law Review, or Journal research;
• Work as a professor’s research assistant;
• Internship or Externship for school credit; or
• Study for the Bar Exam.

"Academic purposes" do not include research conducted for a law firm, corporation, or other entity (other than a professor or law school) that is paying the student to conduct research, or that is passing along the cost of research to a third party. These are deemed "commercial purposes." Students who do not register for summer access will be restricted to a limited menu of employment research during the period beginning June 1 and ending August 1. Reward Points will not accrue during this time for any student, regardless of whether the student has registered for summer access.

LexisNexis ASPIRE Program: Law students and graduates who provide public service may apply for a unique ASPIRE ID to access certain LexisNexis services free of charge. If you meet the eligibility requirements below, please fill-out the Registration Form to use LexisNexis for your public service research. Free LexisNexis access will include: Federal and state cases, codes, regulations, law reviews, Shepard’s®, and, for the first time, Matthew Bender® treatises! To ensure you don't receive unanticipated or unwanted charges, other materials will not be visible.

Eligible students and graduates:

• Rising 2Ls and 3Ls who pursue verifiable public interest work. You must work directly for a non-profit or charitable organization.
• All spring 2010 graduates who pursue verifiable public interest work, including:
• • Deferred fall associates pursuing public interest
  • 2010 graduates pursuing public interest work while searching for employment
  • 2010 graduates who pursue public interest work as a continuing profession

Exclusions include:

• Government work (even if unpaid);
• Work for a law firm (even if it represents a non-profit organization);
• Solo practice (even if it encompasses non-profit work); and
• Pro bono work that is not non-profit or charitable in nature.

ASPIRE Program Timing:

• Students and graduates who apply prior to June 1st will receive their ID the week of May 31st. Students who apply after June 1st will receive their ID within 5 business days.
• Spring 2010 graduates: Access will begin June 1 and continue throughout public interest employment until September 2011.
• Rising 2Ls and 3Ls: Access begins June 1 and continues to August 1, 2010.

Registration Process:

• Complete the ASPIRE registration form.
• Include documentation verifying your public interest position, preferably a letter from the organization. This documentation must clearly state that the work you will be doing is for a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization.
• If you are turned down for the ASPIRE Program you will receive a notice with an explanation.

How to Download PDFs from Westlaw

Have you ever had trouble opening a PDF from Westlaw using Internet Explorer? You keep trying to get a PDF copy of a case from the Federal Reporter, and a window opens for a split second and then disappears? And you want to punch something? We've all been there.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Open up Internet Explorer and follow these simple steps.

• Go to "Tools"
• Select "Internet Options"
• Click on the "Security" tab
• Choose "Custom level..."
• Under the heading "Downloads" (about halfway down list), click "Enable" below the subheading "Automatic prompting for file downloads"
• Click OK, and at next screen, click OK again.

It also helps to add westlaw.com to your brower's pop-up block exemption list, and to make westlaw.com a "trusted site" in Internet Explorer.

To do so:

• Go to Tools
• Select "Internet Options"
• Click on the "Security" tab
• Click "Trusted sites," and then click the button "Sites"
• Uncheck the “Require server verification (https://) for all sites in this zone" box
• Type in *.westlaw.com and then click "Add"
• Click "Close"
• Click OK

Thanks to our friends at the Paul L. Boley Law Library at Lewis & Clark Law School for the assist.

A Westlaw search tip from Eugene Volokh

From the eponymous Volokh Conspiracy:

If you're looking for cases or statutes that define a term, rather than all cases that mention the term in any context, search for WP(term), e.g.,

WP("DANGEROUS WEAPON")

This only works for those terms that West includes in its "Words and Phrases" books; but that's a pretty large set of terms.

Naturally, searching for all references to the term, rather than just for the WP() references, will give you a more complete list. But it may be far too complete, giving you thousands of cases. WP() searching will knock out many of the false positives, though at the risk of omitting some of the true positives.

Maybe most of you know about this feature or already, but some experienced lawyer and law professor friends I asked hadn't, so I thought I'd pass it along in case many people are unfamiliar with it. For similar tips about ATLEAST, NOT W/, and SY,DI(), see here.