Westlaw Insider » Johnny Westlaw

Boston’s legal luminaries look forward to “Lawscar” night

Jon Hanke — Mon, 17 May 2010 17:00:51 +0000

This Thursday, May 20, Boston-area legal professionals will gather for the annual Excellence in the Law event, a lively cocktail party and classy award ceremony rolled into one fun evening.

One of the night’s highlights will be “The Lawscars,” a competition that has nominees vying for such titles as “Law Professor of the Year,” “Rainmaker of the Year” and “Best Dressed Lawyer.” Other honors to be doled out include Diversity Heroes, Up & Coming Lawyers, and the Excellence in Legal Journalism Award.

Johnny and Jenny Westlaw – the stars of the WestlawNext road show videos from a couple of months ago – were invited to Boston to emcee the event and provide red-carpet coverage a la the similarly named ceremony for actors and actresses. (The event’s organizers became fans of the duo when Jenny Westlaw visited Boston in March.) While prior commitments prevented them from attending, Johnny and Jenny appreciate the invite and welcome any future invitations.

Westlaw is proud to be a sponsor of this event, and we look forward to finding out who gets the nod for each of the honors – especially the coveted “Law Firm of the Year” award.

Bostonians: For more information or to attend this event, please contact Melissa Mitchell at 617-218-8213 or melissa.mitchell@lawyersweekly.com.

Everyone else: Let us know about your event, and we may feature it in a future post! Send details to westelearning@thomsonreuters.com.

WestlawNext sneak preview returns to LA on April 20

Marcus Anderson — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:19:28 +0000

Back by popular demand: WestlawNext is cooking up another breakfast preview for anyone who missed it the first time around. This time, we’ll be in downtown LA at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel on Tuesday, April 20.

Know someone in Los Angeles who might be interested? Refer a friend, and you could each win an iPad or Amazon Kindle – even if you can’t make it there yourself! Watch this short video to learn more about the giveaway and hear what attendees at the first LA preview had to say about WestlawNext.

April 20 is just a few days away, so RSVP today – and tell a friend!

RSVP at WestlawNext.com

WestlawNext question: How are search results organized?

Jon Hanke — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:01:58 +0000

If you’ve seen WestlawNext in action, you know that it searches in an entirely new way. Rather than choosing a database first, you simply search through all of West’s core legal content and secondary sources in a single pass. The system gives you multiple ways to slice and dice the results, so you can quickly pinpoint the best resources.

OK, that’s great – but how are these supercharged search results organized? This is a question we’ve heard from many of you, so we asked Kim Ellenberg, a West reference attorney, to explain.

Reference attorneys like Kim answer questions like this every day, and they played a critical role in shaping WestlawNext in the years leading up to its launch. The feedback from customers continues daily, and reference attorneys continue to suggest enhancements to WestlawNext based on what they hear from you.

So please keep the queries coming – and know that, even if we can’t respond directly, we do make note of every comment and tweet that comes our way.

WestlawNext Road Show: Minneapolis

Marcus Anderson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:37:19 +0000

As the preview tour draws to a close, Johnny visits the place where it all began: West headquarters in Eagan, Minnesota, where WestlawNext was created. Tour organizers reflect on the most memorable moments of their whirlwind 15-city experience, and we look back at some of the highlights of Johnny and Jenny’s road trip.

WestlawNext Road Show: Chicago

Marcus Anderson — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:43:08 +0000

Choices, choices…Johnny asks legal professionals in Chicago to name their favorite feature in WestlawNext, and their most popular answer might surprise you. Tune in to see the results – and find out whether Johnny decides to dine on Chicago’s renowned hot dog or its famous deep-dish pizza!

Name that bird – and win some Starbucks!

Jon Hanke — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:46:13 +0000

There’s still time to play our third round of What’s Next Trivia with Johnny & Jenny Westlaw for a chance at $30 in Starbucks gift cards. Here’s what to do:

Watch the Johnny & Jenny videos from the third week of the tour in Miami, Atlanta and Tampa. (Especially Tampa, wink wink.)
Watch any of last week’s videos (from Houston, Denver or Dallas) and wait for the trivia question to pop up at the end (or click on the PARTICIPATE tab to skip ahead).
Answer a single trivia question about one of the videos. Then type in your name and email address (so we can contact you if you win) and click Submit. That’s it!

One winner will be chosen at random from the entries we receive each week, so keep following and playing along as Johnny & Jenny visit the remaining cities on the tour! (For more information, see the official rules.)

WestlawNext Road Show: Boston

Marcus Anderson — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:31:08 +0000

Join Jenny in Boston as she visits Harvard Law School and discovers from preview attendees how WestlawNext will benefit the next generation of legal professionals. And since this is Jenny’s last stop on the What’s Next tour, she takes a look back and signs off from a place where everybody knows her name.

WestlawNext Road Show: Dallas

Marcus Anderson — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:09:11 +0000

How do you know what you don’t know? Find out how WestlawNext provides a powerful way for Dallas-area legal professionals in government, corporate counsel and private practice to overcome this common research challenge, and tag along with Johnny as he saddles up and ropes in a few new tricks at a local cattle ranch.

What’s Next Trivia: Tallying the presidential lawyers

Jon Hanke — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:06:13 +0000

It seems that a law degree may improve your odds of being elected president, since 26 of our 44 presidents have also been lawyers. Here’s the complete list of lawyer-presidents:

John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
John Tyler
James Polk
Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Abraham Lincoln
Rutherford Hayes
Chester Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Calvin Coolidge
Franklin Roosevelt
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Bill Clinton
Barack Obama

If you like presidential trivia, try these expert-level bonus questions. The answers are at the bottom of this post.

Barack Obama graduated from Harvard Law in 1991. (Yep, that’s him above, on campus.)
Who was the only president besides Obama to earn a law degree from Harvard?
Who was the last president without a college degree?
Why is Obama considered to be the 44^th president, when he’s only the 43^rd person to serve in that office?

Thanks to everyone who played during our second week of What’s Next Trivia – and congratulations to Abby W., an assistant librarian at a law firm in Minneapolis, who answered our trivia question and won the drawing for a $30 Starbucks gift card! We look forward to seeing Abby and our other Twin Cities friends at next week’s preview breakfast in Minneapolis. In the meantime, keep playing What’s Next Trivia with Johnny & Jenny Westlaw – and we’ll keep handing out those Starbucks gift cards.

How to enter and win

Watch the Johnny & Jenny videos from the third week of the tour (Miami, Atlanta and Tampa).
Go to any of this week’s videos (from Houston, Denver or Dallas) and click on the PARTICIPATE tab on the bottom of the video screen.
Answer a single trivia question about one of the videos. Then type in your name and email address (so we can contact you if you win) and click Submit. That’s it!

Answers to Bonus Questions

Rutherford Hayes graduated from Harvard Law School – way back in 1845.
Harry Truman never earned a college sheepskin, although he did study law at the University of Missouri in Kansas City for a couple of years.
Grover Cleveland served non-consecutive terms, so he is counted as the 22^nd and the 24^th presidents.

WestlawNext Road Show: Denver

Marcus Anderson — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:31:57 +0000

Jenny visits the Mile-High City to take in the inspiring local landscape and explore the high-performance features of WestlawNext, and she learns how Denver-area legal professionals intend to use its powerful new search capabilities to elevate their legal research.