Thomson Reuters offers Westlaw Precision, enables lawyers to specify precisely what they want and retrieve it quickly

Thomson Reuters is introducing Westlaw Precision, a new version of Westlaw designed to improve research speed and quality by enabling lawyers to target precisely what they are looking for such as legal issues, issue outcomes, fact patterns, motion types, motion outcomes, causes of action, party types, and more.

In addition to precise searching, new capabilities include expanded KeyCite functionality and optimized workflow tools.

“Our customers tell us difficult legal research can often take more than 10 hours per case,” said Mike Dahn, head of product management, Westlaw, Thomson Reuters. “It’s time consuming because they are often looking for something very precise, but traditional searching rarely allows for such precision. Our customers needed more precision in searching to substantially reduce research time. To do that, we made the largest-ever investment in our editorial operations, and the result is Precision Research.”

In testing with more than 100 practicing attorneys, those who used Precision Research found relevant cases more than twice as fast as those using traditional search methods, according to the company. At the end of their research sessions, those who used Precision Research also found nearly twice as many relevant cases as those who researched with traditional methods.

Multiple law firms, including Shearman & Sterling LLP and Larson LLP, state courts, and corporations were part of the beta program and are using Westlaw Precision.  

Precision Research is one of six new research capabilities offered in Westlaw Precision. The other five are:

• KeyCite Cited With: Shows related cases that have a pattern of being cited together even if neither cites the other
• KeyCite Overruled in Part: Indicates, via a new red-striped flag, that a case has been overruled in part and enables navigation directly to the language in the case discussing the point of law that has been overruled
• Graphical View of History: Displays a graphical visualization of research history, mapping out each step and highlighting the searches and documents with more research interaction
• Keep List/Hide Details: Allows users to save cases of interest and hide cases they have determined are not relevant to current research
• Outline Builder: Enables users to organize research with ease by dragging and dropping text into a customizable outline. Linked and formatted citations and KeyCite information integrate automatically, and the outline can easily be exported to begin drafting a brief

Each iteration of Westlaw has delivered more confidence, efficiency, and accuracy in legal research, and Westlaw Precision continues that tradition, guided by the long history of editorial excellence and innovations that Thomson Reuters is known for, according to the company.

For more information about this release, visit https://legal.thomsonreuters.com.