.KEYWORD westlaw
.FLYINGHEAD WIRELESS LEGAL RESEARCH
.TITLE Do legal research on the go with Westlaw Wireless
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY We’ve covered a great number of useful legal applications for your Palm device, but in this article, Steve Niles takes a more in-depth look at what can be done with West Group’s Westlaw Wireless, a popular online business and legal research tool you can now access using a wirelessly enabled Palm device.
.AUTHOR Steve Niles
Palm devices are ideal tools for lawyers, as they provide convenient, go-anywhere access to time and billing software, email, the wireless Internet, and word processing programs. We’ve covered a great number of these products already, but in this article, we want to take a more in depth look at one of the more useful legal applications for your Palm device.
You may already be familiar with West Group’s Westlaw, an online business and legal research tool at http://www.westlaw.com. Subscribers to the Westlaw Web site have 24-hour access to over 13,000 databases. Thanks to Westlaw’s array of research tools, you can do things like conduct extensive legal and business research, check citations, customize your intranet or active desktop with links to Westlaw, build a table of authorities, and find citing cases. This resource has been great for attorneys working at the office, at home, or at the courthouse. It’s also a valuable resource for law students. In fact, at some institutions, Westlaw registration is included with the price of tuition.
Great as that may sound, this online research tool doesn’t take into account many real-world scenarios. What if you need to look up a key piece of information while traveling to meet a client? And wouldn’t it be nice if you could easily access information right in the middle of a courtroom hearing without the hassle of booting up your laptop.
Well, West Group took into account the fact that more and more lawyers are on the go and need convenient, instant access to information. With the recent release of Westlaw Wireless, you can now access Westlaw on any Palm handheld computer equipped with wireless Internet access. Westlaw Wireless provides wireless access to selected Westlaw databases, KeyCite, and the West Legal Directory.
.H1 How’s it work?
Using Westlaw Wireless is extremely easy. Let’s walk through the three primary functions.
.H2 Find a case
With the Find a Case option, you’re able to enter a case law citation and obtain a synopsis of a case and/or headnotes in a matter of seconds. You can then, if needed, have the full text of the case sent to a non-wireless email address. To retrieve a case, select the Find a Case option from the main menu. You’ll then be asked to enter the cite of the case, your Westlaw password, and your client ID. Tap Go, and a moment later the synopsis and headnotes of the case will be displayed, as shown in Figure A.
.FIG A With the Find a Case option you can obtain a synopsis of a case and/or headnotes.
.H2 KeyCite a case
In case you’re reading this and you don’t happen to be in the legal profession, a KeyCite is sort of like the Dewey Decimal System for court cases. It’s a number- and letter-based method of identifying a particular case. The KeyCite a Case function of the Westlaw Wireless application allows you to obtain the full or negative history and/or the citations to the case. The process works much the same way. From the main menu, select KeyCite a Case. You’ll then be asked to enter the cite of the case, your choice of results, and a client ID. Just tap Go, and the information you requested will be displayed, as shown in Figure B.
.FIG B With the KeyCite a Case function you can obtain the full or negative history and/or the citations to the case
.H2 Find a lawyer
Need to contact a peer who worked a similar case? Can’t find the fax number of a colleague at another office? Looking for the number of that foxy public defender you bumped into last Tuesday? The West Legal Directory provides you with the name and Westlaw database profile of most attorneys. From the main menu once again, select Find a Lawyer. You’ll be asked to enter your search criteria. A last name and a state are the only required fields. Tap Go, and you’ll get your search results, as shown in Figure C.
.FIG C The West Legal Directory provides the name and Westlaw database profile of most attorneys.
.H1 Mobile lawyer
As the ability to go mobile becomes a reality for many lawyers, they’re embracing the newfound freedoms associated with it. While riding in a cab on the way to the courthouse, you now have the ability to review and access case law citations in a law clerk’s memo with just a tap. While waiting for a meeting with a client to begin, you have the ability to obtain KeyCite results for unfamiliar cases cited by opposing counsel during a negotiation session. Best of all, what was once down time now can be turned into billable hours. These scenarios are examples of the mobile freedom made possible by the innovations of legal technology companies like West Group.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Westlaw, visit http://www.westlaw.com.
For more information on Westlaw Wireless, visit http://www.westlaw.com/wireless/.
For the article, "Handheld applications for legal eagles," in the December 2000 issue of PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition, visit http://www.palmpowerenterprise.com/issues/issue200012/legal001.html.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6ef65
