There is an old saying that goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
This adage is particularly true when one goes before a court. Misrepresenting the state of the law, even if done unintentionally, can ruin a lawyer’s reputation in the legal community.
The best way for an attorney to ensure that they are relying on arguments that reflect the true nature of the law is to use KeyCite Overruling Risk on Westlaw Edge. KeyCite is the most accurate, up-to-the-minute citation service on the industry’s easiest, most intuitive legal research system. Thomson Reuters’ combined its 125-year tradition of editorial excellence with its leading-edge technological expertise to make verifying legal research easier and more efficient than ever. An attorney can use KeyCite to instantly verify whether a case, statute, regulation, or administrative decision is good law, or whether a patent or trademark is still valid, and to find citing references to support your legal argument. KeyCite provides easy to understand visual indications at the top of a document that let practitioners see the status of a case, statute, regulation, administrative decision, patent, trademark, or secondary source.
A red flag warns that the case is no longer good law for at least one of the points of law it contains.
A yellow flag warns that the case has some negative history, but hasn’t been reversed.
A blue and white striped flag indicates that the case has been appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court.
An orange warning icon is a feature available only in Westlaw Edge. This icon warns that a case may be implicitly undermined based on its reliance on an overruled or otherwise invalid prior decision.
KeyCite can alert an attorney to other facts about an authority that will be helpful in analyzing a case. For example, if the attorney sees the symbol “C” next to a document, they can immediately tell that the authority has citing references but no direct history or negative citing references, meaning they can cite the case with confidence. Similarly, if the attorney sees the symbol “H” they know that the case has history which may affect the interpretation of the law.
Starting your research with KeyCite
While it is always a good idea for an attorney to finish their research by checking the good-law status of their cases using KeyCite, KeyCite can also be used as a jumping off point at the beginning of research. Opening KeyCite for a resource gives an attorney immediate access to a wide array of additional authorities that may further refine and expand their understanding of that area of law.
When a practitioner accesses KeyCite information on a piece of “source authority,” they gain access to a wealth of commentary. KeyCite’s classification system can answer all the major questions about an additional resource without requiring the attorney to open the document.
Read the full article to see what KeyCite can do for you.
BONUS: Check out these related articles for more insights from the experts:
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