WESTLAWNEXTIntroduction to Criminal Law – Cosgrove Militano

This is what you see when youfirst open WestlawNext!

The search box is designed like Googlefor simplicity.

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WESTLAWNEXTIntroduction to Criminal Law – Cosgrove Militano

When you select any court in Westlaw, in this case the NY

Supreme Court Appellate Division (intermediate level appeals court), you first get a list of the top to most

recently decided cases for that court.

Type in your crime / aspect of criminal law you would like case law on.

1. A court issues an opinion in a case.

2. A copy of the case is obtained by West, where attorney-editors read the cases and pick out the points of law or legal issues in the case.

3. These legal issues or points of law are summarized in a “headnote” and assigned a topic and key number.

After the Headnotes comes the official

opinion of the Court.

LET’S RUN ANOTHER EXAMPLE.

By choosing “Most Detail” you get a snapshot of how your search terms are used in the case. This can help you determine which cases are

relevant.

Remember you can sort your results by date – most recent

cases first.

You may want to add a term or concept to further focus your set of search results.

Help with case law interpretation!

Interpretation of the felony murder rule

QUESTIONS?Contact v.waldin@hvcc.edu or Val Waldin at 518.629.7319