As a 1L, you just read every case. In full. Once when assigned then again studying for finals. Along with online summaries. 2L and 3L you read only summaries. https://twitter.com/nancyleong/status/1263593293440364546

But, more importantly, for associates: you should start reading a case at the part of the argument that triggered your search hit. If it’s intriguing, read full section. If still intriguing, full case. Middle-click all relevant cites into new tabs.

If you are reading any facts before checking the sentences triggering your hits, you’re wasting time. 1/10 research skills.

If you find a case worth remembering, “Copy With Reference” and paste into a word document, loosely organized by theme or topic. Creating cute Westlaw folders takes too much time and doesn’t help as much when you go to outline.

“Citing References” and search w/i citing references is easily the most valuable tool in WL. I’d say 75% of my searching is done in citing references. You should run very few “fresh” searches in the main bar. Refs on refs on refs.

I think my last tip is to know all the terms and connectors. It’s not quite boolean. In terms of importance, I think ! and /# show up in every single search I run.

“PrivilegeLog” /p (teach! or taught) +s research! % #appellatetwitter

Oh another tip to save $ - often your first search will be too massive. Way overinclusive. Totally normal (even desirable). Instead of running a new narrower search, search within by copy-pasting original search into filter (to retain hit highlighting) and adding connectors.