USCA Index: Try the Back Door First

IN THIS ISSUE USCA Index: Try the back door first Who decided which words would appear in USCA® headings and section names? If that person wasn’t you, read on.

The names given to titles, chapters, and sections of the United States Annotated Code® (USCA) make perfect sense—if you’re already looking at a section. If you’re staring at a blank USCA Search page, it’s a different story. It can be hard to predict which terms will appear in the headings, section names, or text of the statutes you’re looking for. But if you get stuck, the statutes index may offer a way out. Just browse or search this alphabetical index for a topic heading, e.g., Fringe Benefits, and click the heading. Direct links to relevant USCA sections are displayed in an easy-to- scan list. Don’t worry if you didn’t choose the best heading on your first try: All subtopics and cross-references are displayed there, too, as well as user-friendly links to the full-text sections. How to access To access the statutes index for the USCA, access the United States Code Annotated database (USCA) by typing usca in the Search for a database text box in the left frame of the Westlaw page. At the USCA Search page, click Statutes Index. How to use At the top of the statutes index you will see the alphabetical navigation tool and a text box. To jump to a portion of the index, click a letter of the alphabet. In the alternative, you can search for a topic by typing a term, e.g., fringe benefit, in the text box and clicking Search. To view all subtopics under a topic in the index, click the topic heading. Then click the plus (+) symbols as necessary. To view the full text of a statute cited in the index, click its citation. Statutes Index for USCA == How to find a key number in a haystack When you have the right key number, case law retrieval is a breeze: The key number is a pipeline to every reported case in the country that discusses the point of law similarly classified. But how do you winnow through the 100,000 available topic and key numbers and pick the right one?

An easy way is to use the Search for Key Numbers feature. Click Key Numbers at the top of any Westlaw Classic page or on the site map. A page is displayed that contains the Search for Key Numbers text box, as well as links to the West Key Number Digest and to KeySearch®. Type a short description of your issue, e.g., liability for incorrect information in credit report, and click Search.

A list of topic and key numbers is displayed. Click a topic and key number to view the headnotes classified under that topic and key number. Or select the check boxes next to one or more topic and key numbers and click Search Selected to view the headnotes under those topic and key numbers.

Search for Key Numbers feature == I scan USCCAN You can find a range of legislative history resources in a single publication —U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News®.

Why should you use congressional committee reports to research the intent of Congress? Because the U.S. Supreme Court said so!*

And where do you get committee reports? You can retrieve committee reports for a particular federal act—as well as public laws, presidential messages and signing statements, proclamations, committee membership changes, executive orders, and session highlights—by searching the appropriate U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News (USCCAN) database on Westlaw Classic. Committee report from USCCAN Here’s a closer look at USCCAN databases:

Which USCCAN databases are available?

For a list of the USCCAN databases on Westlaw Classic and links to their Search pages, go to the Westlaw Directory and click U.S. Federal Materials in the right frame. Then click U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News. In the alternative, you can access the USCCAN databases related to a particular step of the legislative process by clicking a number in the diagram at the tabbed Legislative History–Federal page.

Available USCCAN databases include (but are not limited to) the following:

. U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News–Legislative History Reports (USCCAN-REP) All congressional committee reports, including reports on bills that did not become law, beginning with 1990. Also sets out the legislative history of public laws as reprinted in U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News from 1948 through 1989, as well as the legislative history of securities laws beginning with 1933. . U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News–Presidential Messages and Signing Statements (USCCAN-MSG) Documents released for publication in the Federal Register by the Executive Office of the President of the United States as reprinted in U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News. Coverage begins with 1986.

. U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News–Executive Orders (USCCAN-EO) Executive orders and related documents released by the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Coverage begins with 1936.

. U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News–Session Highlights (USCCAN-SESS) Highlights of congressional sessions as published in update supplements to U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News. Coverage begins with the 106th Congress (2000).

Presidential signing statement from USCCAN

Can I search more than one database at a time? To search all USCCAN content simultaneously, access the U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News multibase (USCCAN). You can search using the Terms and Connectors or Natural Language search method. For example, to retrieve the public law, remarks by the president and other government officials, congressional reports, and other documents related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, access USCCAN and type the following query: “patient protection and affordable care”

How can I see a USCCAN legislative history table? In the back of the U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News, there is a table (Table 4) of legislative history citations, dates, and other details. To view Table 4 for a particular year, access U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News–Legislative History Table database (USCCAN-TABLE) and use the template to search for a particular year, Congress (e.g., 110th), or congressional session. Legislative history table (Table 4)

*Thornburg v. Gingles, 106 S. Ct. 2752, 2763 n. 7 (1986) (“We have repeatedly recognized that the authoritative source for legislative intent lies in the Committee Reports on the bill.”)

== Consecutive documents: Meet the neighbors! Suppose you’re searching the Code of Federal Regulations and you find a section that seems very relevant to your research issue. What’s the first thing you want to do? Peek at the nearby regulations, of course! After all, other regulations in the same chapter might be more suited to your issue—or reveal aspects of the subject matter that hadn’t occurred to you. Here’s how to look at the section immediately preceding or following the statute or regulation you are viewing on Westlaw Classic or WestlawNext: Westlaw Classic While viewing a statute or regulation, click Previous Section or Next Section in the document header. WestlawNext While viewing a statute or regulation, click an arrow on either side of the section symbol (§) on the document toolbar.

Previous Section and Next Section links

== New efficiencies for international patent practice: INPADOC table view, new links to (and from) PCT patent documents Some recent enhancements will save time for those researching prior law and other information related to patents and patents applications around the world: . INPADOC (International Patent Documentation Center) table view: Results from searches in the INPADOC database (INPADOC) on Westlaw Classic can now be viewed, sorted, and restricted using the user-friendly table view, previously available only in European and ASIA-PAC patent collections. For example, users can click the appropriate boxes in the heading portion of the table to display or hide information as needed. Users can also click headings to sort results in ascending or descending order and print or download information in a variety of formats, including Excel (which allows users to sort results even further).

 Patent Cooperation Treaty patent links: A single international patent application under the PCT has legal effect in all 142 countries bound by the treaty, and applicants receive valuable information about the potential patentability of their inventions and have more time than under the traditional patent system to decide in which of the PCT countries to continue pursuing patent protection. (Corporate Counsel’s Quarterly, Two millionth patent application filed under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), Oct. 2011). Access to PCT documents is now more convenient: Citing PCT applications are now included in the KeyCite citing references for US patents. In addition, new linking is available in PCT to PCT applications and US patents cited in PCT applications.

PCT linking is the first phase of our international patent linking initiative—watch for further developments.

INPADOC table view

== Now in Advanced search templates: The sy,di and pr,ca field restrictions How do you search cases or statutes and court rules by topic? As any experienced Westlaw Classic researcher knows, a good way is to restrict your case law search with a preliminary/caption field restriction (pr,ca) or your statutes search with a synopsis/digest (sy,di) field restriction. When you use these combined field restrictions, you search only where important terms are likely to be, and you don’t get buried in documents in which terms are mentioned in passing, e.g., in library references. It recently became easier to use these field restrictions on WestlawNext: The Advanced search template for case law content now contains a Synopsis/Digest box so you can run a single search that will retrieve all cases in a jurisdiction in which your terms appear in the synopsis, a digest topic or subtopic, or a headnote. Similarly, the Advanced search templates for statutes and court rules contain a Preliminary/Caption box so that you can easily search for only those statutes and court rules in which your terms appear in the statutory caption or superior headings. For example, in the Advanced Search template for any statutes or court rules content, type a term or Terms and Connectors query, e.g., personal +3 property, in the Preliminary/Caption box and click Advanced Search. Preliminary/Caption box == Westlaw.com is now Westlaw Classic You may have noticed that the legal research product residing at www.westlaw.com has been renamed Westlaw Classic (i.e., not Westlaw or westlaw.com) and rebranded accordingly.

The name and branding change has two purposes:

. to distinguish between our two research platforms Westlaw Classic and WestlawNext . to distinguish the legacy research platform from the larger brand offering, Thomson Reuters Westlaw, which now represents all online legal research, as well as books, CDs, and some software

Westlaw Classic logo == ALR Supreme Court Review (2011 to 2012): A year’s worth of hot decisions—on Westlaw now! The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will have politicians, scholars, and voters buzzing well past election season. And it’s not the only one: The Court issued several headline-grabbing decisions this term on such issues as mandatory life sentences for juveniles, state measures to enforce federal immigration law, and First Amendment limits on laws regulating political expenditures and on false claims of military honors.

For an easy-to-navigate recap of the Court’s major decisions (including decisions on certiorari)—with links to the full text of the authorities cited—see the 2011 to 2012 A.L.R. United States Supreme Court Review, 66 A.L.R. Fed. 2d 535, now available on Westlaw Classic and WestlawNext. A.L.R. Supreme Court Review (2011 to 2012) == Key Number System changes in Public Contracts, Social Security & Public Welfare, Obscenity, Obstructing Justice, and more For any number of reasons, the West Key Number System needs to be “tweaked” at times. This is one of those times.

Changes resulting in the reclassification of approximately 200,000 headnotes are now visible on Westlaw Classic and WestlawNext (with print soon to follow). The most significant changes are in the following areas:

. Obscenity (topic 281) incorporates in its new outline the existing topic Lewdness (236), which becomes obsolete. The outline has been improved to handle the increasing number of child pornography prosecutions and the distribution of pornography over the Internet. . Obstructing Justice (282) incorporates in its more granular and modern outline the existing topic Compounding Offenses (88), which becomes obsolete. . Public Contracts (316A) gets a new topic number (316H) and a new outline that is no longer restricted to generalities; the topic now incorporates subjects related to specific government entities, e.g., bidding practices for federal contracts, which now classifies to both Public Contracts and the topic United States. Virtually all points of law related to public contracts are in the new topic, as well as the topic for the particular government entity. . Social Security & Public Welfare (356A) no longer covers public assistance benefits, e.g, TANF, which is now covered in the newly created Public Assistance topic (316E). . Public Assistance (316E) covers subjects related to public assistance benefits that were previously addressed in Social Security & Public Welfare, Agriculture (23), and Paupers (292, now obsolete).

Smaller changes can be seen throughout the West Key Number System, including an enhanced section on public contracts within the topic United States (393).

Obstructing Justice topic (detail)

== Westlaw Doc & Form Builder: font customization, Graphical Question help Westlaw Doc & Form Builder reduces the time it takes to complete a wide range of forms in all jurisdictions. These recent Westlaw Doc & Form Builder enhancements make form building even more flexible and user-friendly:

. Font customization: You can change your preferences to set a font type and font size that will be applied to all graphical forms you complete on Westlaw Doc & Form Builder. Click Preferences, then click the Document Formatting tab on the Preferences dialog box and make your selections using the Font Type and Font Size lists. Your font selections are automatically applied to all graphical forms until you change your preferences.

In addition, you can modify the font type and size for the form you’re building or any specific field in it, regardless of your font preferences. While building the form, click anywhere in the box. Click Font on the toolbar and make your font type and size selections on the lists displayed. To apply your selections to the whole form (but not change your preferences), click Apply Font to Form.

. Graphical Question help: This feature is for those situations when you aren’t certain what to type in a specific box or need some guidance. When building a graphical form, a short Help screen is available for each box you complete. Click a box, then click the question mark on the toolbar to display the Help screen.

Some Help screens even contain links to applicable primary or secondary sources on WestlawNext.

. Word option for graphical forms: If you prefer the editing features of Microsoft Word, you can set your preferences so that graphical (PDF) forms are automatically downloaded as Word documents. Click Preferences, then click the General tab (if not already displayed). Select Microsoft Word from the list, select the check box next to Apply my download format to Graphical Form content, and click Save.

Font customization in Westlaw Doc & Form Builder ==

Federal Rules Decisions articles—where you expect them to be! Articles in Federal Rules Decisions might not technically be “law review articles,” though they provide thorough analysis of issues related to federal rules; are written by prominent judges and other commentators; and are often persuasive to courts. In addition to expert commentary on rule changes, Federal Rules Decisions materials include guidelines, primers, proposals, reviews, and conference notes. Some articles, e.g., William Schwarzer’s Sanctions Under the New Federal Rule 11–A Closer Look, 104 F.R.D. 181 (1985), have been cited as authority in hundreds of judicial opinions.

But unless you knew to access the Federal Rules Decisions Articles database (FRD-ART), you may have struggled to find them.

They’re now easier to find: Federal Rules Decisions articles are now contained in the Journals and Law Reviews (JLR) and Texts and Periodicals–All (TP-ALL) databases, beginning with 1939. That means that when you are run searches on federal summary judgment, Rule 11, or any other issue related to federal rules, Federal Rules Decisions articles may be included with other analytical materials in your secondary sources result. WestlawNext, too: Federal Rules Decisions articles can also be retrieved when searching secondary sources on WestlawNext. If you want to retrieve only Federal Rules Decisions articles, click Secondary Sources on the Browse tab. On the following page, click Law Reviews & Journals, then click Federal and Federal Rules Decisions Articles.

Federal Rules Decisions article