A case can be red-flagged even when it hasn’t been reversed or overruled.

KeyCite flags are generated when there is an implied overruling.

Normally, “disagreed with” and “declined to follow” language will not generate a red flag.

However, in a situation where the citing case is from a binding jurisdiction, it will.

For example, if the U.S. Supreme Court disagrees with a Minnesota Supreme Court case, then the Minnesota case will display a red flag.

The U.S. Supreme Court is a binding jurisdiction for the Supreme Court of Minnesota, so an implied overruling has occurred.

You can set Westlaw to display page breaks in a document.

In Preferences, under Document Display there is a section for Star Paging Defaults.

Checking “Display Star Page breaks in document” will allow you to see visually where each page break is in a document for each star page available.

Also, it will provide a message if star paging is not available for the document such as in Private Letter Rulings.

Black’s Law Dictionary Deluxe Ninth Edition has many helpful appendices.

Appendix A is a Table of Legal Abbreviations and Authors.

This table is very helpful if you are wondering what a legal abbreviation is or run into one while researching.  An example would be the abbreviation J.L. & Pol. which is the Journal of Law and Politics.

Appendix A shows both J.L. & Pol. and J.L. & Pol’y which are different publications.

Appendix B provides many Legal Maxims in Latin.

If you are like me and don’t have the ability to instantly translate Latin to English this can be a helpful tool.

For example looking for the Latin phrase for “inclusion to the exclusion of others”.

Inclusio unius est exclusio alterius was ultimately found searching in cases.

Remember this appendix the next time you hear a Latin phrase and need some English terms to use for a search.

Appendix C is the Constitution of the United States, which is always helpful.

Appendix D is a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Appendix E lists all members of the US Supreme Court, where they were from, who appointed them, and their tenure on the Court.

Appendix F is a Federal Circuit Map.

The Browse All document will have the title and text of each of the statutes in the portion you selected; it will not include the credit field or any annotations.

You can access Browse All by clicking on the links or Browse All icons in the preliminary field.

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rules and Commentary is a comprehensive guide to practice under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

This two-volume treatise includes the complete, up-to-date text of all Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and, for each rule, a detailed practice commentary that discusses what the rule does, how it has been applied, and how it relates to other rules or other procedural matters.

The treatise also includes Advisory Committee Notes for each rule, an extensive list of sample pleadings and other forms, and supplemental rules.

The Table of Contents is organized to mirror the USCA.

Statutes Index is an excellent source when looking for state statutes by topic.

For example when looking for Statutes of Limitation for various causes of action in Idaho (ID-ST-ANN) go to the Statues Index under “L” for Limitation of Actions.

You will see a large list of different topics and causes of actions with links to the relevant statutes.

Another good use of Statutes Index is finding alternative terms for legal topics.

In Louisiana for example agents can be called a mandatary and the principle/agent contract can be called a mandate.

If a customer called in asking about ‘mandates’ in Louisiana you could easily go to the Louisiana statutes index and search under ‘M’ for ‘Mandate’.

The very first link under ‘generally’ would take you to the code section discussing principal agent (mandatary) relations in Louisiana.

Another example is looking for current topics in jurisdictions.

If you’re looking for New York statutes on ‘Subprime Mortgages’, you can look at the New York Statutes Index under ‘Mortgages’ to see ‘Subprime Home Loans’.

You can see that the New York statutes also say ‘Home Loans’ so that will be a better term to search for than ‘Mortgages’.

You do not need to sign-off then sign back on to Westlaw to change a Client ID.

Instead, you can click “Preferences,” and then “Change Client ID” on the left.

Once the new Client ID is entered, you can click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen and all further research in the current session will be assigned to the new Client ID.