West Reference Attorney Andy O’Meara recently pointed out some of the advantages of using FormFinder on Westlaw in this blog post (and this video). He and his colleagues get a lot of call-in questions from Westlaw users who are surprised to learn some of the things FormFinder can help them do. Here are some typical questions they receive.

Q:  I’ve never been involved in a case involving a bad-faith employee contract negotiation. Where can I find a checklist to help me get started?

A: FormFinder’s search template makes it easy to narrow your search by topic, sub-topic, and additional search terms, such as “bad faith.”  The Results Summary then categorizes the documents by text forms, checklists, and clauses to focus in on the one you need.

Q: I need the official PDF form for a court in Missouri, but I practice in Michigan. Is there one place where I can find forms for unfamiliar courts?

A: FormFinder allows you to filter your search by jurisdiction.  The Results Summary includes a section for Official PDF Forms with coverage from state and local courts and state agencies. These forms can be viewed in PDF, completed, saved and printed.

Q: I finally got my hands on a form created by an expert in my area of practice.  Now, how can I quickly modify it to fit my case?

A: FormFinder offers an Easy-Edit version of the document for an additional charge. This removes the header/footer, Westlaw links, and other unneeded content so you can populate the form with information specific to your case. Contact a Westlaw representative for specific pricing information.

Q: Many issues require the same type of form over and over, such as a Motion for Summary Judgment.  Where can I find other basic form documents I need all the time?

A: FormFinder searches across more than 500,000 documents to deliver the forms you need for your day-to-day practice.

Q: It seems like I always get cases dealing with obscure matters that nobody in the firm has ever seen.  Where can I find an example document to get me started?

A: FormFinder offers documents for more than 47 practice areas including 500 sub-topics.  Your matter is bound to be in there – believe it or not!

In addition to Easy-Edit text forms, FormFinder now features a revamped search template, global search functionality, more intuitive browsing and filtering tools, links to related resources, and new content from Miller’s Standard Insurance Policies Annotated and Oden. For more information, visit west.thomson.com/formfinder.

Westlaw tip: If you are using an acronym or an abbreviation in a search, always put periods between the letters; you never know what punctuation a court or author will use. By placing periods between the letters, Westlaw will search for your term with or without periods. E.g., using the search term U.S.A. in the database SCT (U.S. Supreme Court cases) will return more results than the search term USA.

(Provided by West Reference Attorneys)

This question came from Twitter. We felt it necessary to provide a response from our Reference Attorneys.

Q: Does anyone know where to find state session laws on WestlawNext? I’m really missing the directory feature right now!

A: Old session laws are currently NOT yet on WestlawNext. Current session laws are available at Proposed and Pending Legislation.

Have you ever searched for a form in Westlaw only to find that the results weren’t exactly what you had in mind? If so, you’re not alone.

“A lot of Westlaw users go to the FORMS-ALL database to look for forms,” says Andy O’Meara, a West Reference Attorney. “And what they find is often in the wrong format for what they need – for example, they’re looking for a form and they find a checklist.”

In these situations, Westlaw’s FormFinder tool can be a huge help.  “With FormFinder, you can choose whether you want to find a clause or a checklist or one of the various types of forms that are out there,” Andy says.  “And unlike FORMS-ALL, FormFinder also gives you official PDF forms from the states.”

In his four years as a reference attorney, Andy has helped hundreds of Westlaw users locate the forms they need. “Typically, form calls come from solo practitioners or newer attorneys looking for forms because they haven’t dealt with a particular situation before,” he says.

For example, Andy recently received a call from an attorney looking for forms to set up a new church in Georgia. He pointed her to FormFinder and then suggested that she expand her search to include all nonprofits, not just churches. “Sometimes it’s helpful to pull back a little bit,” he says.

While many forms are jurisdiction-specific, the bulk of their content is often universal. “That’s where Easy-Edit comes in handy,” Andy says, referring to the FormFinder feature that allows users to download forms in rich-text format for easy editing and tweaking to suit the need. “There’s an additional charge for Easy-Edit, but it can really be worth it to cut down on the time takes to modify a form.”

Andy recently narrated a two-minute video that provides a quick overview of FormFinder’s most useful features and enhancements. “I think we’ve addressed every pain point in the workflow of the practitioner – searching for the form, finding the form they want, and modifying the form to fit their situation,” he says.

FormFinder gives you access to more than 500,000 forms, with clauses and checklists for just about any legal filing. In addition to Easy-Edit text forms, FormFinder now features a revamped search template, global search functionality, more intuitive browsing and filtering tools, links to related resources, and new content from Miller’s Standard Insurance Policies Annotated and Oden. For more on FormFinder, visit west.thomson.com/formfinder.

Q: As part of my background research on a party, I quickly found a voter registration record for her. Unfortunately, this particular registration record tells me little about her. Is there any other way to get a sense of her political leanings or perspective?

A: Search the Political Donor Information database (POLITICAL-DONORS). Even if the individual never declared a party affiliation, her POLITICAL-DONORS record may include information such as the party, committee, or PAC to whom she has donated; the dates and amounts of her contributions; her employer; and her occupation. In addition, the Links tab may contain links to her other political donations, a variety of public records, and her Westlaw PeopleMap report.

In this two-minute video, West Reference Attorney Andy O’Meara demonstrates how easy it is to find the form you need using FormFinder on Westlaw.

FormFinder gives you access to more than 500,000 forms, with clauses and checklists for just about any legal filing. For more information, visit west.thomson.com/formfinder.

The next time you click a content category (e.g., Cases) in the left column of your WestlawNext search result, you may notice something new: The documents in the result list are numbered! This change, effective as of August 6, allows lawyers, law librarians, and others at an organization to refer to documents in the list without having to repeat the document name or citation.

Note: Numbering is not displayed on the overview page, just on the content category result page. Nor is numbering displayed in KeyCite citing references, documents in folders, West Key Number Digest results, or West km results.

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

Doing corporate work? You might need to find some good will or close a stop-gap. But is it “good will,” good-will or goodwill? You can get all of these at once. Hyphenated words pick up all three versions. Thus, use of stop-gap as a term will instruct Westlaw to search for stop gap, stopgap and stop-gap.

(Provided by West Reference Attorneys)

Q: I searched WestlawNext for U.S. Supreme Court cases on First Amendment protections for campaign spending. Many of the opinions I retrieved were quite long, e.g., Buckley v. Valeo, which consumes 150 pages in the Supreme Court Reporter. Is there a fast way to jump to the important parts?

A: One fast way is to jump directly from your result list to the parts of the opinions in which your search or Search Within terms appear. Click anywhere in the document text excerpted in your result list, and the portion of the document in which the text appears is displayed. (A green arrow appears in the document next to the beginning of the text that is excerpted in the result list.)

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

Too many criminal cases have your search all locked up?

You can do something that says, “but not any cases with U.S., People, State or Commonwealth in the title, and no case with Topic Number 110 (Criminal Law) or 197 (Habeas Corpus) or 310 (Prisons) or 349 (Search and Seizure).”

All you need to do is copy and paste this string at the end of your Terms and Connectors search:

% ti(U.S. people state commonwealth) to(110 197 310 349).

(Provided by West Reference Attorneys)