Legal Research

Printing Statutes on Westlaw

By Diane Murley

When doing research in a statutory code, such as the U.S. Code or Arizona Revised Statutes, you will frequently want to print, email, or download a range of consecutive sections. Statutory codes divide laws into sections, organized by topic, and a single statutory section rarely stands alone. Today I will tell you how to get a group of related sections in a single document, without notes or annotations, on Westlaw. Tomorrow I will cover LexisNexis.

Once you find a section on your research topic, you can see where it fits in the statutory scheme by checking the table of contents. The table of contents of a statutory code is like a detailed outline. On Westlaw there is a link to the Table of Contents to the left of each statutory section. At the top of each section, there are links to specific points in the outline. For example, at the top of 49 U.S.C.A. § 44901, the following outline appears:

If you follow the link for Chapter 449 or Subchapter I, a small window pops up showing the text of all sections within the chapter or subchapter, without notes or annotations. Click the Maximize button at the bottom of the pop-up window to display the text of all sections in the right frame. Click on the icon at the top of the right frame to Print, Email, or Download the text of all the sections, without notes or annotations, in a single document.

Full post as published by Ross-Blakley Law Library Blog on February 12, 2008 (boomark / email).