T&C
This is the connector that describes the relationship between two terms within the same sentence.
What is /s?
These are the two biggest advantages of consulting Secondary Sources first when beginning to research a legal issue.
What is summaries and explanations of applicable law with context, AND indication of applicable mandatory and persuasive authority.
Usually indicated as a tab above your document on WL/LX, this annotation type houses links to other documents where yours is referenced.
What is the Citing References tab?
This is the name given to the research method in which a mostly appropriate case is found, and a databases’ indexing tools are used to find additional applicable law.
What is the One Good Case Method?
These are the names of the four steps of the research process, in order.
What are Preliminary Analysis, Secondary Sources, Codified Law, Case Law.
This is the term modifier that researchers use when intending to catch words of many different endings, spellings, and tenses.
What is "!" ?
(lol)
This kind of secondary source provides practical advice for attorneys in a specific practice area.
What are Practice Guides?
This is the most common way to refer to the laws of a city.
What are Municipal Ordinances or Municipal Codes?
These are the two courts of last resort in Texas.
What are the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court
In several sessions, we've spoken of a lawyer who used this tool in his legal research without fact checking it, much to his own professional detriment.
What is ChatGPT?
The name of the function that uses parentheses to group connectors in a long search string.
What is Nesting?
These are the most popular Texas Practice Guides, proprietary to Westlaw and Lexis, respectively.
What are O'Connor's and Dorsaneo's?
This is the publication where the Session Laws of Texas get arranged in chronological order and published.
What is the General and Special Laws of Texas.
These are the three most important factors when considering the mandatoriness (yes, that’s a word) of a case in relation to your own facts and circumstances.
What are Jurisdiction, Court Hierarchy, Publication Status?
This function allows researchers to continue narrowing their search, at no extra cost, as long as it’s done using T&C language.
What is Search Within?
This is the advanced search prefix Lexis uses to search documents containing a specified attorney name.
What is Counsel ( x )?
This is the best online source to research the legislative history of Texas statutes.
What is Texas Legislature Online?
These are the three methods of statutory interpretation, useful when the language within a statute is ambiguous or raises other language questions.
What are looking at the Definitions Section, at Judicial Interpretation, and at Regulatory Interpretation.
The symbol on Lexis that indicates that citing references contain treatment questioning the continuing validity or precedential value of the case.
What is the Orange Q symbol?
This is the function that allows a researcher to sort through database results using predetermined characteristics or metrics.
What is a filter?
The order in which the following sequence will be processed on Westlaw: due /3 process /20 fourteenth /2 amendment.
1: fourteenth /2 amendment
2: due /3 process
3: set 2 results /20 set 1 results
When other methods are exhausted, you can use this kind of resource to determine how best to conduct the next steps of your research plan.
What is a [insert topic] Research Guide?
These are the three functions of Rules and Regulations, each of which can be accomplished depending on the intent of the administrative agencies that create them.
What is Rulemaking, Enforcement, and Adjudication?
These are the three types of county-level courts in Texas.
What are the Constitutional County Court, Probate Court, County Court at Law.
This is your new favorite method for keeping track of your research.
What is a Research Log?