Using FOCUS™ and Custom Restrictions in a Shepard’s® Report (August 20, 2008)
Julie Webster-Matthews, Librarian Relations Consultant, shares one of her favorite tips this week, using FOCUS™ and Custom Restrictions in a Shepard’s® report. As Julie explains, one of the most critical components in the legal research process is to uncover cases that cite the case you are relying upon. Shepard’s is the ‘go-to’ resource for that task. Oftentimes your Shepard’s results list can be extensive. Your case may be cited hundreds of times. Use the ‘FOCUS-Restrict By’ feature in Shepard’s to streamline results and find relevant cases that contain a specific keyword, phrase, or term-of-art.
- When viewing a Shepard’s report, click the ‘FOCUS-Restrict By’ link at the top of the screen.
- On the next screen, a ‘FOCUS terms’ box will appear on the right-hand side of the template.
- Type your desired terms in the box, and click on the Apply button at the top of the screen.
- Your new Shepard’s results list will consist of cases from the original list that contain the search terms you used in ‘FOCUS.’ Go directly to a case by clicking on the case name. To get to the exact point in the case where your keywords are mentioned is easy. While viewing the desired case, use the ‘Term’ feature in the right-hand corner of the lower navigation bar. Use the right arrow to jump to each occurrence of your keywords.
- Your search terms will be highlighted throughout the case for easy detection.
In addition to being a convenient and efficient tool for analyzing your results, there is no additional charge for using the ‘FOCUS-Restrict By’ feature in Shepard’s.
‘FOCUS-Restrict By’ gives you the power to also customize your results list by LexisNexis® Headnote number, jurisdiction, analysis and date. Give these a try and see if you agree with Julie that these are powerful features of the Shepard’s Citations Service.
