Using Citators to Update Authority

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Overview | Types of Citators

Introduction
This research guide covers Shepard’s online (an online Lexis product), Key Cite (an online-only Westlaw product), Global Cite (an online-only Lois Law product), and Shepard’s Citations in print. This guide focuses on online citators because of their greater reliability and ease of use, however. Please consult a reference librarian for assistance using print citators.

PART 1: OVERVIEW

What is a Citator?
Citators are resources used to research the relationship of a known legal document to other legal documents. Most commonly, they are used to determine whether or not a case is good law, that is, whether it remains binding precedent or whether it has been overruled by a statute, regulation, constitutional amendment, or another case. Updating research by checking a case’s (or other authority’s) currency is often referred to as “Shepardizing” or “Key Citing,” after the names of two popular citators. This research guide uses the generic term “updating” throughout.

Citators have other uses as well. They can be used to determine what amendments have been made to a given statute, what cases have cited to a given law review article, what law review article’s refer to a given regulation, and so on. In short, in addition to verifying whether published cases are good law, citators can be used to locate related material to many kinds of legal documents.

Terminology
“Citing references” are documents (cases, statutes, regulations, law review articles, treatises, briefs, etc.) that cite, or refer to, the document whose citation you have entered into the citator.

“Cited references” are documents to which citing references refer; the citation you initially enter into a citator is the cited referencce for all of the results retrieved.

Note that the terms “citing reference” and “cited reference” are relative terms. A cited reference in one context may be a citing reference in another, and vice-versa (just as a person can be one relative’s brother and another relative’s uncle simultaneously).

Why are citators important?

Verifying Currency
Good legal research includes making sure that all of the sources you are relying upon are up-to-date. Citators were initially designed for this purpose. Citators will tell you if a case has been overruled, a statute amended, a regulation repealed, etc.

Expanding Research
Citators are one of the easiest ways of locating related materials if you already have a good relevant document to start with, and may be more efficient than constructing keyword searchers if you do not have access to digests. If you are researching a statute’s application to a particular issue, citators can help you to get started compiling its legislative history by identifying amendments over time and related cases and regulations. Even good researchers who have diligently verified the currency of all of the authorities may benefit from knowing about a recent law review article with compelling policy arguments about a controversial issue.

Retrieving Parallel Citations
Citators are great for quickly (and cheaply!) retrieving parallel citations for a case. If you need a parallel citation but don’t have a printed reporter handy with that information, and you do not pay a flat rate for access to Westlaw or Lexis, it is generally cheaper to use an online citator to retrieve parallel citations than to get them by actually retrieving the case’s full text.

Appropriate Use of Citators
You must thoughtfully and cautiously analyze the shorthand symbols and terminology used in citators. It is not wise to rely exclusively on the information from a citator without consulting the actual cases it refers to. For instance, many cases address several different points of law. If a case has been overruled only as to one point of law but you summarily exclude it from your analysis because a citator classified it as “overruled,” you may overlook important precedents the case established regarding other points of law. If a citator indicates a case has been upheld, distinguished, criticized, or overruled, you should examine the actual documents to see how they relate to that case. The same applies if a citator indicates a regulation or statute has been deemed unconstitutional. Citators are great for helping you spot potential concerns, but they are no substitute for thorough research.
Note: No phrase or symbol can capture all the subtle ways in which legal authorities relate to each other!

PART II: TYPES OF CITATORS

There are four major citators for U.S. legal materials: Shepard’s Citations (in paper), Shepard’s online (an online Lexis product), Key Cite (an online-only Westlaw product), and Global Cite (an online-only Lois Law product). The law library maintains a subscription to Shepard’s online for patrons who are not staff, students, or faculty of the College of Law and do not have Lexis accounts. Due to licensing restrictions, you must be physically present in the law library to use this service. KeyCite is available only to those who possess an individual Westlaw account.* GlobalCite is available only to those with Lois Law accounts, but law students can register for a free account and others can register for a free trial account. The library maintains only a very limited selection of paper citators.

* Shepard’s Online is available on a pay-per-search basis at: http://web.lexis.com/xchange/forms/uas/case pull check.asp?_svc=SH. A credit card is required and you will be charged $4.25 for each citation you check.
KeyCite is also available on a pay-per-search basis, at: http://creditcard.westlaw.com/welcome/frameless/default.wl. A credit card is required and you will be charged $6.25 for each citation you check.

Shepard’s Online
To use Shepard’s online, follow the link from the law library's list of online databases. (If you are using Shepard’s online from your own Lexis account, simply select the “Shepard’s” tab from the top of the page and make sure the Shepard’s subheading is highlighted if necessary.)

To update a case, statute, regulation, law review article, or other document, enter the document’s citation into the field provided and press the enter key. More information about how to use Shepard’s online can be found by selecting the “Show Me” link to launch a tutorial. Not all advanced features of Shepard’s Online may be available to users without Lexis accounts. More tutorials to help you learn about using Shepard’s online are available here (scroll down and you will see information about Shepard’s under “Online Tutorials”): http://www.lexisnexis.com/infopro/training/.

Key Cite
Key Cite is only available to users with Westlaw accounts. If you do not have a Westlaw account, please refer to the above material about how to use Shepard’s online in the law library. To use KeyCite, simply enter the citation of a case, statute, regulation, law review article, or other document into the field marked “Key Cite this citation” in the column at the left off the Westlaw research page. Free guides about Key Cite in .pdf format are available at: http://west.thomson.com/keycite/guides/. For a tutorial go to http://www.law school.westlaw.com and select “Discover Westlaw” then “Undertsand Westlaw” then “Key Cite.”

GlobalCite
GlobalCite is only available to users with LoisLaw acccounts, but law students can register for free accounts and anyone can register for a free trial account. These accounts are limited to primary materials and do not include access to LoisLaw’s secondary materials. To use GlobalCite, you must first retrieve a document from LoisLaw. Select the “GlobalCite” link at the bottom of the screen displaying the document to use the citator. More information about how Global Cite works is available at: http://www.loislaw.com/info/content/globalcite.htm. For a tutorial go to: http://www.loislawschool.com/info/content/globaltutor.htm.

Online Citators Compared
Key Cite is quite similar to Shepard’s online. Differences in the interfaces are more stylistic than substantive. For instance, Shepard’s online uses stop sign and yellow triangle icons to indicate that cases may no longer be good law, while Key Cite uses red and yellow pennant icons. Both allow you to limit your results by specific parameters (e.g., to cases decided in the past five years, to cases from a particular jurisdiction, to law review articles, etc.). Both allow you to be automatically notified of changes to a resource’s status (via Shepard’s Alert and KeyCite Alert). Global Cite is significantly diffferent from the other two citators. Some differences among the three are noted below*:

  • KeyCite is correlated to the West topic and key number system and West headnotes. Shepard’s Online is correlated to the Lexis Search Advisor system and Lexis head notes. GlobalCite is correlated to headnotes only if they are produced and included as part of official cases; it does not correlate to either the Lexis or West head note systems, which are copyrighted by those companies.
  • Key Cite includes graphic charts of a case’s previous and subsequent histories, which facilitates tracking them through the appellate process, especially for cases with complex histories or numerous citing references and appeals that consolidated several cases below. Neither Shepard’s Online nore Global Cite offers this feature.
  • The citations to cases themselves appear in Shepard’s Online and KeyCite the day they are decided; they are available on Global Cite within 1-2 days. Editorial anaylses and classifications occur somewhat later: in 3-4 days for Shepard’s Online and 9-10 days for KeyCite. GlobalCite does not include editorial analyses and classifications; instead it highlights relevant terms (such as “affirm,” “overrule,” and “distinguish”) within citing references, as well as references to the cited reference itself, to make it easier for researchers to make their own judgments about how the citing reference has treated the cited reference.
  • Shepard’s Online includes in its citing references cases,statutes, regulations, law review articles, select treatises, and ALR annotations. Key Cite includes in its citing references cases, statutes, regulations, law review articles, select treatises, ALR annotations, CJS and Am. Jur. 2d entries, select CLE materials, and select court documents (briefs, motions, etc.), and pending legislation and regulations. Global Cite includes in its citing references cases, statutes, regulations, bar journal articles, select treatises, court rules, attorney general opinions, sentencing guidelines, jury instructions, and miscellaneous other resources (more information about what types of documents are included is available by going to http://www.loislaw.com/index.htm and selecting “Product Information”).
  • Key Cite indicates negative treatment and depth of treatment (i.e. how extensively a citing reference addressed the cited reference, including whether the cited reference was quoted). Shepard’s Online indicates negative, neutral, and positive treatments as well as depth of treatment (but not whether the cited reference was quoted). As explained above, Global Cite does not include editorial analyses and classifications.
  • Key Cite lets you restrict results by type and depth of treatment, search terms, jurisdiction, headnote topics, document type (cases, statutes, etc.), and time period. Shepard’s Online lets you restrict results by type and depth of treatment, search terms, jurisdiction, head note topics, document type, and time period. GlobalCite lets you restrict results by document type only.
  • Both Key Cite and Shepard’s Online have a “Table of Authorities” feature so you can identiy all of the cited references for a given document. GlobalCite does not have this feature.

*Mary Whisner and Jonathan Franklin’s research guide “Online Citators” (http://lib.law.washington.edu/ref/on cite.html) was consulted to prepare these comparisons; it contains an excellent table comparing Key Cite and Shepard’s Online.

Because the interfaces change and develop over time as the companies attempt to improve them, we encourage you to explore the tutorials and other educational materials referred to above or to ask a reference librarian if you have questions about how to use online citators.

Shepard’s Citators (In Paper)
Shepard’s citators are also published in bound volumes. They were the first citators to be produced and remained the only citators until relatively recently. Several versions exist, most corresponding to a specific jurisdiction or specialized area of law (e.g., Shepard’s Illinois Citations, Shepard’s Federal Statute Citations, Shepard’s Bankruptcy Citations, etc.) Since the primary purpose of a citator is to ensure a researcher has the most current information about the law, and the law can change in a matter of days as courts hand down new opinions, these paper citators are necessarily out of date in the time it takes to publish and distribute them. New technology and the advent of online citators has rendered paper citators largely obsolete. Indeed, some contend that lawyers who rely solely upon paper citators to update their research should be sanctioned, disciplined, or liable for mal practice.

Despite its drawbacks, the paper version of Shepard’s remains useful. For instance, Shepard’s Federal Statute Citations is currently the only way to locate cases construing federal statutes that appear only in the Statutes at Large and not the U.S. Code (yes, there are such things!). The paper version of Shepard’s also allows researchers to pinpoint exactly how current one’s research is by checking for the most recent date of the most recent publication consulted. Because they are constantly being updated, online citators, while always more current than paper citators, do not allow one to know precisely up to what point they are current. However, an online citator’s currency can be narrowed down to within a matter of days, so this feature of paper citators is of dubious utility (Legal researchers seem unlikely to ever shout with glee, “My information is out of date, but at least I know precisely how out of date it is!”).

Paper citators can still be useful if locating related materials, rather than ensuring a resource’s currency, is the researcher’s goal, but even then they can be cumbersome to use because users must collect multiple volumes and interpret a system of sometimes confusing symbols to use them properly. Because of these limitations, the law library only collects paper Shepard’s citators for the state of Illinois. Shepard’s Illinois Citations are located at KFI 1259.S53 (cases) and KFI 1239.S53 (statutes) in the Illinois Alcove near the reference area. This research guide focuses on online citators because of their greater reliability and ease of use. Please consult a reference librarian for assistance using paper citators.