Legal Research: Locate More Relevant Binding Authority (Contract Issue) (Common Law)

Find More Relevant Cases with the Key Numbers: Scroll the Left-Side of the Screen

Let's use the Headnotes and Key Numbers from Aiea Lani Corp. to expand our research and locate additional cases with similar points of law that we might use in our client's argument.

Let's use Aiea Lani Corp to consider the anatomy of the West Headnotes below.

Find more cases with the same point of law that you might use in your client's argument by clicking on the relevant key number and running a Custom Digest.

After you click on the bottom key number, select the appropriate jurisdiction for your issue.

The jurisdiction defaults to state & federal, but depending on your issue, you might want to search one or the other, but not both.

Running a Custom Digest with the relevant topic and key number 95k309(1) from Headnote 7 in Aiea Lani Corp leads us, once again, to Warner v. Denis.  We would definitely note this in our research plan and look to read the case more critically later after we have finished researching.

The Key Number System is proprietary to Westlaw, so creating a case digest in Lexis works a bit differently.  You are still identifying the relevant headnote(s), but then instead of searching with key numbers, you search with a smaller topic within a larger topical string to locate similar cases that you might use in your client's argument.

This search yields over 3600 cases, so we have to filter or search within to create a manageable result list. Lexis' topical search is less exact than Westlaw's Key Number search, though not always and the discrepancies continue to shrink as the Lexis algorithm improves.

Rather than searching the Key Numbers from a relevant starting case, you can also search for Key Numbers relevant to your issue directly from the West Key Number System.  To access, click on Key Numbers from the landing page.

You can browse or search with key terms to locate Key Numbers relevant to your issue.

From the results page, select to view the Key Numbers either individually or grouped together.

Selecting a Key Number brings you to the Custom Digest page that displays the relevant cases (and corresponding headnotes) about that specific point of law in the selected jurisdiction.

You can search the Key Numbers in the Universal Search box, as well.

Searching with the Key Numbers in this way confirms the relevance of the cases that our research strategy has already uncovered, and pulls some additional cases that our earlier research efforts did not.

Searching with the Key Numbers in this way also uncovers some previously seen, and yet-to-be-seen, secondary sources.

Find More Relevant Cases with the Citing References and Table of Authorities: Scroll the Right-Side of the Screen

Let's use the Citing References from Aiea Lani Corp. to expand our research and locate additional cases with similar points of law that we might use in our client's argument.

Consider using the Jurisdictional filter to limit the results to only binding authority.  Click on the + symbol to expand each jurisdiction.

Consider using the Headnote Topic filter to limit the results to a specific point of law.

Consider the Depth of Treatment filter to limit the results to only those case citators that discuss or examine (highest depth of treatment) the points of law from the cited reference.  Consider the Reported Status filter to limit the results to only reported (published) cases.

Expand your research with the discussed or examined cases that support the reasoning of the relevant cases from your research.

Lexis has all the sorting, filtering, and searching within features as Westlaw.  Remember to shepardize the case first to access its Appellate History, Citing Decisions, other Citing References, and Table of Authorities.