Case LawUsing Westlaw

Catherine FunnellMiddlesex University

Databases-Quick Facts

Heinonline• English Reports(pre 1865 cases) only• Available on the Internet Westlaw and Lexis Library• Access to legislation case law, journal articles• Also current awareness(status updates legislation

and cases)• EU legislation,cases,journal articles

Westlaw

• UK cases from 1220,including The Law Reports• European Union case from 1954(Judgments

from the Court of Justice from 1954,the General Court from1989

• UK case law Official Transcripts• Case Analysis(Descriptive Analysis document

for UK,Scottish and EU case law)

Accessing Westlaw• Log in to My UniHub• Select the My study tab• Scroll down the page to find My Library• Click on Library Subject Guides• Select the Law and Legal Research Guide• Select the Resources tab• Scroll down to the Gateways to Legal Resources sub tab• Select Westlaw

You can search for Case Law by CitationParty NamesSubject

Go to the next slide to find a case By Citation

Reading a Legal Citation

[1960] 3 WLR 919

Date-Year case was reportedLaw Report Series where it was reported

Volume of Law Report SeriesPage in Law Report Volume

This is a legal citation for a case

You need to know what each part of the citation

represents

Click on the Cases tab

Finding the Case

Fisher v Bell is the caseLet’s take a CLOSER look

CITATION

Understanding the Detail

Party names,court case reported in and date case heard

What area of law?(criminal)

Case Descriptors(offensive weapons,sale of goods

Where reported?-what law report series report this case-where can I

find the details,full text?Documents- full text reported in these

law report series found in Westlaw

Click on CASE ANALYSIS next

Case Analysis

• Useful as a case alerter if you are :

• tracking a case(another case has been heard between the

same parties on a different point of law)

• The case has been cited by another case

•The case has been referenced in a journal article

• Case Digest-SUMMARY of the case

• Case Digest-where you can find the JUDGMENT/DECISION

Click on the CITATION for the Full Text

Status Icons

Positive or Neutral indicates that this is GOOD

LAWStatus Icons are important as you need to be aware of the

status of a specific case

If you click on the HELP Button and then select About Case law

from the Index you can see what the various icons look like

and what they mean

PDF

To view/and/or save the PDF click on the

PDF Icon

Go to the next slide to find a case using Party Names

Party Names

It’s easy to find a case by Party

NamesJust type the

names in the party names Box!

Go to the next slide to see the results

Which one do I choose?

Torts!! Negligence!!

Click on the Citation

Donoghue v Stevenson

The famous case about a snail, ginger beer and

NEGLIGENT shopkeeper

Let’s find cases on a specific subject

Subject Searching

This is a great many results so you might wish to add another subject

keyword to futher limit the results in the EDIT Box

Enclose a phrase in speech marks “ “

To add another keyword curfewType AND in upper case

Click to see results from adding another subject keyword

Limiting/Narrowing Search Results

Added keyword sentencing

Still fewer results after adding the word sentencing

Recap-Subject Searching

• In the Free Text Box type in the subject keywords you have chosen

• Enclose phrases in “speech marks”• When adding another keyword with the phrase type

AND in upper case letters• To limit the results further, narrowing your subject

results more specifically, you can type another word in the EDIT BOX on the results page

Keywords in Context

You can see the number of times the keywords you selected appear in some of the text of the case and the context in which they appear as

well

Searching Law Reports andTranscripts

You can also search the individual Law Report series by date to locate a specific case or search by subject

This isn’t particularly efficient but you may wish to BROWSE

them

Go to the next slide to see how to do this

Browsing By Law Report Series

We’ll use Weekly Law Reports as our

exampleGo to the next slide to see the results

Browsing(Law Report Series)

Status IconParty NamesCase Analysis

Full Text of caseCourt Transcript