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Understanding Precision Research

Precision Research offers new ways to search, filter and browse case law research. This new way of researching allows you to more easily find a core set of highly relevant cases. You can find cases that involve the same:
  • Legal issue and outcome
  • Fact pattern
  • Material facts
  • Party type
  • Cause of action
  • Motion type and outcome
  • Area of law
Precision Research provides the following benefits:
  • Spend less time reading through cases that aren’t relevant to your matter
  • Complete legal research faster
  • Be confident in your results
  • Gain a better understanding of the law
  • Be more responsive to your clients
  • Avoid surprises from opposing counsel or the court

Searching with Precision research

  1. Select
    Start Precision Search
    .
  2. Start typing a few words related to your research in the
    Search
     field.
    note
    Precision Search will suggest attributes like legal issue and outcome, fact pattern, and motion type and outcome that have been tagged in recent and older, leading cases.
  3. The number of cases available to view will display in the
    View Cases
     button.
  4. If you want to remove a selection, select the
    x
     next to it or select the
    Clear all
     button.

Using Precision research filters

If you’ve already run a search, you can narrow your cases by using the Precision Research filters on the left side of the Results page. For best results, run a search that will return a wide range of cases.
  • Selecting one of the filters brings up a lightbox to run a search or make your selection. As you make selections, the number of available cases will appear.
  • You can also use the tabs to add additional Precision Filters to your results
  • If you are unsure which filter to use to find a specific legal similarity, begin in any of the Precision Filter options and the pop-up will alert you if your terms match a different filter type.

Browsing Precision Filter Results

  • Each case that has been editorially enhanced with the Precision Filter attributes will include a Browse Box with a brief summary of the legal issues, material facts, causes of action, and motion types for your search.
  • Each editorially enhanced Browse Box allows you to select More cases on this issue. This will take you to a list of cases that involve the legal issue in the headnote.

This article applies to:

  • Product: Westlaw Advantage
  • Subject: Research