Bloomberg's Points of Law Can They Compete with Headnotes?, 0918 COBJ, Vol. 47, No. 8 Pg. 12

AuthorBY JILL STURGEON
PositionVol. 47, 8 [Page 12]

47 Colo.Law. 12

Bloomberg's Points of Law Can They Compete with Headnotes?

Vol. 47, No. 8 [Page 12]

The Colorado Lawyer

September, 2018

August, 2018

LEGAL RESEARCH CORNER

BY JILL STURGEON

Generations of legal researchers have relied on headnotes to identify the legal principles within a case. Like a movie trailer intent on spoilers, headnotes seek to show legal researchers, attorneys, judges, and even legal scholars what a case is about before they begin reading it. West, now owned by Thomson Reuters, has incorporated headnotes into its published cases for more than a century. Indeed, Thompson Reuters has included headnotes in its print reporters since the 1880s and introduced its key number classification system in the early 1900s.[1] Lexis Advance users have also had access to headnotes for years, and now Bloomberg Law is adding a similar feature to its online legal research database. This new feature, called "Points of Law," uses machine learning to highlight important parts of cases and guide researchers to other cases containing similar legal phrases. This article explores Bloomberg Law's new product and compares it to West law and Lexis Advance's headnote systems.

About Headnotes

Westlaw and Lexis Advance add headnotes to cases to help legal researchers quickly identify points of law discussed in the case and determine whether a case is relevant to their legal questions. These headnote systems also enable researchers to find cases discussing issues similar to the ones they are researching.

Westlaw's headnotes are created by attorney editors who identify important legal points in the case and summarize diem into individual headnotes. Each headnote is then assigned one of Westlaw's key numbers. These key numbers are assigned to headnotes in other cases that discuss die same idea, so that by searching the key number assigned to your legal issue, you can find other cases that are on-point, in multiple jurisdictions, with one click Although it wasn't always one click away, Westlaw invented this key number system and its digests to enable researchers to find cases based on topic or, once a good headnote has been located, by key number.

Lexis Advance's headnote system similarly uses a topic classification to allow researchers to jump from a headnote on their issue in one case to a list of other cases that discuss that legal topic. Like Westlaw's digest system, Lexis Advance also allows searching by keyword in this topic classification system.

Bloomberg's Points of Law

Bloomberg Law, a relative newcomer to die legal research marketplace, added die Points of Law feature to existing subscriptions in 2017. In 2018, Bloomberg Law won die American Association of Law Library's New Product Award for Points of Law.2 Unlike traditional headnotes found at die top of a case, Points of Law are found throughout the case, where text that is identified as legally relevant has been highlighted. Researchers can scan through the highlighted text for their...

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