Case Law Enhancements in Westlaw®

West attorney-editors add over 20 distinct enhancements to all published (and most unpublished) court opinions. Click the links below to learn how Westlaw's most significant case law enhancements can help you.

Headnotes explain each point of law.
It's no exaggeration to say that West headnotes are the building blocks of finding and understanding the law. A quick scan of the headnotes reveals all the points covered within an opinion.

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Key numbers help you find relevant cases.
Each headnote is classified with a key number, which makes it easy to line up all cases, statutes, treatises, law reviews, and journal articles that govern an issue. No need for citations or word searches - the exclusive West Key Number System® delivers the most complete on-point results.

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Case synopses give you more with less.
Case synopses allow you to browse a few words and save a ton of time. Instead of laboring through an entire 100-page opinion, you can scan a short paragraph to quickly determine its worth to you.

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Added search terms mean you won't miss a governing case.
West attorney-editors add synonyms, acronyms, terms of art, generic names and legal relationship terms to every case, so you can use search terms that make sense to you without missing on-point cases just because the judge used slightly different words.

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Court corrections … Because judges and clerks are only human.
From time to time, opinions are issued with mistakes that range from misspelled words to substantive factual errors. Only West works closely with the courts to make the necessary corrections, which involve more than half of the 200,000 court opinions published by West each year.

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