Monday, April 14, 2014

Westlaw Classic to Retire on July 1

After several years of operating alongside "next-generation" platform WestlawNext, Westlaw Classic will no longer be visible to all Law School password-holders, beginning on July 1. You will likely see announcements about this change when logging in to Westlaw. After July 1, WestlawNext will be the only option at the Law School for accessing Westlaw legal research content.

For databases where WestlawNext users are currently "bridged" into Classic (illustrated by an arrow pointing to the upper right, such as selected public records), WestlawNext will continue to link to the Classic interface after July 1. Law firms, courts and governments will also continue to have access to Classic for a while longer – meaning your LARW training on the Classic interface could still prove useful for the time being!

If you are unable to locate particular sources, or notice other features from Classic which are missing in WestlawNext, you are encouraged to report them directly by using the "Improve WestlawNext" link at the bottom of the screen. Note that defunct databases which ceased to update on Classic before the advent of Next will never be migrated over, so check the database's scope note in Classic (by clicking the "i" button) for currency before reporting those databases as missing from WestlawNext.

Westlaw offers a number of interactive WestlawNext Research Basics online tutorials to help users get up to speed with the newer interface. For assistance with using WestlawNext, or for any other legal research questions, be sure to Ask a Librarian.