You can now require or exclude terms in a WestlawNext search

As of  September 3rd, you can now require that all documents retrieved in WestlawNext contain or exclude a particular term. And you don’t need to construct a Terms and Connectors query to do so.

 To require that all documents retrieved by your WestlawNext search contain a specific term, type a plus (+) symbol immediately before the term in your search. For example, type a search such as the following:

first amendment right to distribute +handbill

To exclude a specific term from all documents retrieved by your search, type a minus (-) symbol immediately before the term in your search. For example, type a search such as the following:

slip and fall where handrail -stairway missing

 User tips:

•  It does not matter where the required or excluded term appears in your search.
• You can exclude and require different terms in the same search.
• This feature is only available for plain language searches.
• You cannot require or exclude terms that are too common to be searched.
• You can require or exclude a number only if you type the number at the beginning or the end of the search. However, you can type a number containing a hyphen (e.g., 10b-5), period (e.g., 10.5), or comma (e.g., 10,000) anywhere.

Submitted by
Jay Shuck
Legal Writer, Customer and Product Documentation
Thomson Reuters Legal