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About Loislaw: FAQ
What is the source of Loislaw's data?
How are cases paginated on Loislaw?
Does Loislaw publish slip opinions and advance sheets?
Do cases contain headnotes on Loislaw?
Are statutes annotated on Loislaw?
Is Loislaw hyperlinked?
What is indexing?
Can documents from Loislaw be copied into a word processor?
Does Loislaw work in Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, and XP?
Does Loislaw support Apple Macintosh® operating environments?
What kind of internet access does Loislaw recommend?
Is there a preferred type of computer?
Where can I find information on Frequently Asked Questions related to purchasing products online through the Loislaw Store?
What is the source of Loislaw's data?
At Loislaw, the content services team communicates with the courts to facilitate the timely acquisition of data. In many jurisdictions, case law is received directly from the courts. At Loislaw, a staff of content services managers and assistants communicates with the courts to facilitate the timely acquisition of data. In some jurisdictions, Loislaw licenses case law from an official publisher. Statutes, acts, and administrative rules and regulations are generally received directly from the regulatory source or may be licensed from an official publisher. Treatises are generally published in conjunction with Aspen Publishers, a law and business publisher based in New York City, and CCH, Incorporated, a tax publisher based in Chicago. Loislaw, Aspen Publishers, and CCH, Incorporated are all operating companies within the North American division of Wolters Kluwer a leading provider of information services worldwide.
How are cases paginated on Loislaw?
An official case citation usually contains a page number from the final printed version of a case. Loislaw's pagination always reflects that of the official reporter, and therefore, Loislaw's search engine is fully compatible with the official citation system.
Whenever the official publisher of a jurisdiction holds copyright to the pagination, Loislaw licenses the pagination for reproduction on its website. If copyright to the pagination is not held by an official publisher, Loislaw takes the page numbers directly from the source provided by the publisher or court.
For slip opinions and cases which have not received final published form, Loislaw cites the case by docket number and/or public domain citation.
Please note that some "recent" (
) cases are posted directly to the website in their source format, without being indexed and paginated in Loislaw's permanent collection. These cases are fast-tracked in order to make them available as soon as possible; lists of "recent" cases are compiled programmatically and usually appear on Choose a Database pages for various jurisdictions. Most "recent" cases will have been received within twenty-four hours and will appear in Loislaw's permanent collection within one or two days.
"Recent" cases generally do not reflect final pagination, and will not be returned from a citation search in Find A Case or SelectCite. As soon as they enter Loislaw's permanent collection, recent cases are indexed by docket number and supplemented with final, official pagination when it becomes available.
See GlobalCite and "recent" cases for more information on "recent" cases and their status relative to Loislaw's permanent collection. See also the discussion of slip opinions and advance sheets below.
Does Loislaw publish slip opinions and advance sheets?
Yes. Loislaw publishes very recent cases, typically in the form of slip opinions issued by the court or official publisher. These "recent" cases are fast-tracked in order to expedite availability; they are posted directly in the native format received from the publisher or court, and are not yet indexed or paginated in Loislaw's permanent collection. Lists of "recent" cases are comprised almost exclusively of slip opinions, and usually appear on Choose a Database pages for various jurisdictions. Most "recent" cases will have been received within twenty-four hours and will appear in Loislaw's permanent holdings within one or two days. As soon as they enter Loislaw's permanent data, slip opinions are assigned a citation by docket number.
Loislaw integrates advance sheets into its permanent collection by replacing slip opinions with the same case from an advance sheet. Advance sheets contain the second (and nearly final) version of a case, and are distinguished both from slip opinions (the earliest draft) and from cases in a bound reporter (the final published form).
Advance sheets are typically issued as unbound gatherings of pages. The advance sheet can include minor revisions and enhancements by the official publisher; Loislaw reproduces those revisions which are considered public domain. The advance sheet also typically includes the final, official page numbers. As soon as an advance sheet is integrated into Loislaw's permanent holdings, the official citations are available to Loislaw's GlobalCite, Find A Case, and SelectCite functions. Advance sheets are typically integrated into Loislaw's data within approximately one week of their release. Ultimately, when the final bound reporter is received, the bound text of a case replaces the advance sheet version.
For Loislaw's CD-ROM customers, slip opinions are available for download between the quarterly issues of CDs. Loislaw's N-Line Advance Service provides slip opinions that are downloaded directly to the user's hard drive. The downloaded files are automatically loaded into "PITA," Loislaw's proprietary search and retrieval software for CD-ROM. Advance sheets and cases from the final published reporter are available on CD-ROM only.
See GlobalCite and "recent" cases for more information on "recent" cases and their status relative to Loislaw's permanent collection. See also the discussion of case law pagination above. For more insight into pagination and its programmatic consequences for Loislaw's search engine, see "What is indexing?" below.
Do cases contain headnotes on Loislaw?
Loislaw reproduces headnotes in jurisdictions where they are supplied by the court and appear as part of the decision.
In many jurisdictions, headnotes are added by an official publisher and are not considered part of the decision. Headnotes supplied by an official publisher are typically included in advance sheets and are considered special enhancements under copyright by the publisher. In these jurisdictions, Loislaw may not reproduce headnotes.
Many legal professionals are familiar with headnotes, annotations, key numbers, and other 'finding aids' typically associated with print-based editorial enhancement of the law. In many instances, Loislaw's search and retrieval software replaces print-based editorial enhancements by making the law searchable, interlinked, and highly navigable.
For example, when compiling a results list, Loislaw's search engine returns brief textual excerpts with each hit in a case law database. In some instances, the excerpt contains an official headnote published by the court. In other instances, the excerpt contains what the search engine determines to be the most relevant text, given the user's particular query. Loislaw's search engine determines relevancy based upon the number of search terms present in a given range of text.
Excerpts such as these—whether reproduced statically from an official headnote, or generated programmatically during a search—will replace and often exceed the benefits of printed headnotes. Additionally, any document resulting from a search—whether a case, statute, or regulation—will contain highlighted, navigable search terms when viewed in full-text mode. Users may jump quickly from one occurrence of a search term to the next, and survey hits for the most relevant passages.
Are statutes annotated on Loislaw?
Annotations are not generally reproduced on Loislaw, since they are not considered evidence of the law in most jurisdictions. Typically, statutory annotations are added by the various print publishers of state and federal codes.
Loislaw's GlobalCite replaces one of the primary functions of printed annotations, namely, the listing of cross-references. GlobalCite compiles a list of all documents that cite a statute, including not only other statutes, but also case law, acts, and regulations as well. Annotations generated through GlobalCite are usually much more complete and more current than those found in traditional, static print sources.
Is Loislaw hyperlinked?
Yes. Loislaw's primary law is richly interlinked.
Hyperlinks connect primary law documents to each other. Virtually all primary law documents will contain hyperlinks after they are indexed into Loislaw's permanent collection. The user may click on a hyperlinked citation to retrieve a case, statute, or other document. Depending on a user's browser setting, hyperlinks initially appear in blue underlined font. Once a link is followed, the font color typically changes to purple.
Treatise libraries, practice manuals, and bar books are also hyperlinked to the primary law which they cite. In some libraries, treatise documents contain links to forms or other relevant supporting documents.
What is indexing?
Indexing is the process of sorting words in a document and storing their locations in memory. Indexing involves many different kinds of evaluation and analysis of documents. For example, in a tort case involving an allegation of malpractice against a plastic surgeon, the words "liposuction" and "wrongful" would be indexed, whereas the word "and" would be ignored. It is the task of Loislaw's search engine to index documents; after indexing, the documents become searchable programmatically. The process of indexing also stores a document in Loislaw's permanent collection of data. Depending upon the publishing status of a document, indexing makes it available to Loislaw's search and retrieval functions like GlobalCite, Find A Case, and SelectCite.
Can documents from Loislaw be copied into a word processor?
Yes. Documents can be copied into popular word processors using the Copy and Paste functions from the Edit menu.
Loislaw recommends using the Paste Special function found in most word processors to avoid transferring parts of the HTML code that might be selected from the browser display. After selecting text in the browser, choose Copy from the Edit menu. Go to MS Word, for example, position the cursor appropriately, and choose Paste Special from the Edit menu. Next, choose Paste as Unformatted Text (or an equivalent option) to omit all special formatting codes.
Call Technical Support at (877) 471-5632 for help on copying text into a particular word processor.
Does Loislaw work in Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, and XP?
Yes, Loislaw works in all Microsoft operating system environments. For optimum functionality, Loislaw recommends running Windows XP, and upgrading to Internet Explorer version 7.0. Additionally, Netscape 7.0 or higher will execute the Javascript from Loislaw and is considered compatible with the website. Loislaw also supports Firefox 2.0 (and up) for Windows.
Does Loislaw support Apple Macintosh® operating environments?
Mac users running OS X (Apple operating system version 10) typically encounter few if any problems when using the Camino web browser version 0.8 and up. Loislaw also supports Safari (1.3 and up) and Firefox (2.0 and up).
What kind of internet access does Loislaw recommend?
To reach Loislaw over the internet, users must subscribe to an online service such as AOL, or to a local Internet Service Provider (ISP). Although a dial-up connection will work to access the website, Loislaw recommends a broadband cable or DSL connection for optimum speed and responsiveness. For dial-up connections, the computer needs a telephone modem with a recommended minimum speed of 56 KB. For broadband, the computer needs a DSL or cable modem and an ethernet card.
Is there a preferred type of computer?
Loislaw supports both 'IBM-clone' PCs and Apple Macintosh machines.
Where can I find information on Frequently Asked Questions related to purchasing products online through the Loislaw Store?
Please visit the Loislaw Store FAQ for information regarding our online purchase process and related Loislaw Store policies.