The West American Digest System is a system of identifying points of law from reported cases and organizing them by topic and key number. The system was developed by
West Publishing
West (also known by its original name, West Publishing) is a business owned by Thomson Reuters that publishes legal, business, and regulatory information in print, and on electronic services such as Westlaw. Since the late 19th century, West has ...
to organize the entire body of
American law
The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as v ...
. This extensive
taxonomy
image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy
Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...
makes the process of doing
case law
Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is a law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of ...
legal research
Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a prob ...
less time consuming as it directs the researcher to cases that are similar to the legal issue under consideration.
History

The problem of finding cases on a particular topic was a large problem for the rapidly growing American legal system of the 19th century. John B. West, the founder of West Publishing, described this problem in his article ''A multiplicity of reports''. To solve the problem, he developed a system with two major parts. First, his company began to regularly publish cases from many American jurisdictions in bound volumes called
reporters
A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism.
Roles
Journalists can work in broadcast, print, adverti ...
(the West
National Reporter System
West's National Reporter System (NRS) is a set of case law reporters for federal courts and appellate state courts in the United States. It started with the ''North Western Reporter'' in 1879 which has its origin in ''The Syllabi'' (1876, ).
Fed ...
now covers all state and federal appellate courts, as well as certain trial courts). Second, he put together a classification system in which he divided the law into major categories which he called topics (such as "Contracts"). He then created hundreds of subcategories. To save space in printing, these were given a number called a key number. He then applied this "topic and key number" system to the cases he published. The key number is identified in the books with a key number and a key symbol graphic.
John West was not the original creator of the digest system which now bears his name; it predates the creation of the National Reporter System. In 1847,
Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries, it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emil ...
started to publish the ''United States Digest'', a digest of all state and federal case law since 1790. In 1870, Little, Brown hired brothers Benjamin and Austin Abbott to start over and prepare a new series of the ''United States Digest'' from scratch. Then in 1889, West Publishing Company acquired Abbott's ''United States Digest'' from Little, Brown, renamed it the ''American Digest'' in 1890, and hired John A. Mallory to "build upon Abbott's improvements in law digesting". In 1909, West Publishing began to aggressively market its system of topic and key numbering as the West Key Number System.
[ (At p. 46.)]
Since then, to reinforce how West digests and reporters are intended to be used together for legal research, the printed volumes of reporters in the National Reporter System are traditionally marked by a "West Key Number System" logo on their spines. (The key depicted is somewhat cartoonish, in that it has too many teeth to be used in a typical
pin tumbler lock
The pin tumbler lock, also known as the Yale lock after the inventor of the modern version, is a lock mechanism that uses pins of varying lengths to prevent the lock from opening without the correct key.
Pin tumblers are most commonly employ ...
.)
At the encouragement of the
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary association, voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students in the United States; national in scope, it is not specific to any single jurisdiction. Founded in 1878, the ABA's stated acti ...
, West also licensed the West Key Number System "to nearly every independently published state digest", and invited writers of treatises and textbooks to include West key numbers in their publications.
[ (At p. 47.)]
How it works
Each case published in a West reporter is evaluated by a West "attorney-editor" who identifies and summarizes the points of law cited or explained in the case. The attorney-editor places the summaries of the points of law covered in the case at the beginning of the case. These summaries are usually a paragraph long, and are called headnotes. Each headnote is then assigned a topic and key number. The headnotes are arranged according to their topic and key number in multi-volume sets of books called Digests. A digest serves as a subject index to the case law published in West reporters. Headnotes are merely editorial guides to the points of law discussed or used in the cases, and the headnotes themselves are not legal authority.
West publishes ''West's Analysis of American Law'', which is a complete guide to the topic and key number system, and it is revised periodically.
Print digest
In print, a digest works like an encyclopedia, in that the topics are listed in alphabetical order and printed on the
spines. The "Descriptive Word Index" provides guidance as to the proper topics and key numbers.
The digest system includes digests for the individual states (except for Delaware, Nevada and Utah). The U.S. Supreme Court, the Court of Federal Claims, bankruptcy courts, and military courts each have an individual digest, and all their decisions are also included in the ''Federal Practice Digest'' together with the notes of decisions from the federal
District Courts and
Courts of Appeals. Digests are also published for West's
National Reporter System
West's National Reporter System (NRS) is a set of case law reporters for federal courts and appellate state courts in the United States. It started with the ''North Western Reporter'' in 1879 which has its origin in ''The Syllabi'' (1876, ).
Fed ...
. Specialty subject digests exist, such as the Education Law Digest, and the Social Security Digest.
For nationwide research, about once a month, West publishes a ''General Digest'' volume, which incorporates classified digest notes from all
reporters
A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism.
Roles
Journalists can work in broadcast, print, adverti ...
of the West National Reporter System. These are then cumulated into a ''Decennial Digest''. Decennial implies that this occurs every ten years, but in the past several decades, there have been Decennial Digest Parts I and II (the 11th Series now has Part III, so the cumulation is now more frequent. However, the various Decennial Digests are not cumulated. Thus, completing such a search over several decades requires consulting the Decennial Digests, and then updating that work with the most recent series of the General Digest.
Some of the state and topical digests are revised to include the first cases in the jurisdiction, while the spines of the books of some of the other digests indicate that they are from "1933 to date," for instance, indicating that one must consult a prior series for references to earlier cases. The state, federal, regional, and topical digests are updated by interim pamphlets, pocket parts, replacement volumes, or a new series.
The Digest on Westlaw
Researchers can also search the digest electronically using
Westlaw
Westlaw is an Computer-assisted legal research, online legal research service and proprietary database for lawyers and legal professionals available in over 60 countries. Information resources on Westlaw include more than 40,000 databases of ca ...
:
* with the "Key Number Search Tool", which uses a word search to identify up to five key numbers,
* with the "Key Numbers and Digest" feature (browse by subject using an expandable
tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...
– no search terms required),
* by a key number search using the "Terms and Connectors" method (with a known topic and key number – in the form of 134k261; topic 134 is Divorce and the key number is 261 for "Enforcement, In general"),
* by using the KeySearch feature (a menu of
hierarchical
A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an importan ...
links that automatically generates a search without the need to see the key numbers or the terms and connectors query), or
* by finding a relevant case using keyword searching and then using the key number hyperlinks in the document to find related cases.
Most secondary sources published by Thomson West, such as ''
Corpus Juris Secundum
(''CJS''; Latin for 'Second Body of the Law')Legal Research and Writing for Paralegals, Published by Wolters Kluwer and written by Deborah E. Bouchoux is an encyclopedia of United States law at the federal and state levels. It is arranged alphab ...
'' and ''
American Jurisprudence
''American Jurisprudence'' (second edition is cited as Am. Jur. 2d) is an encyclopedia of the United States law, published by West. It was originated by Lawyers Cooperative Publishing, which was subsequently acquired by the Thomson Corporation. ...
'', also have key number hyperlinks in their online Westlaw versions.
The "Key Numbers and Digest" feature and the hyperlinks create a "Custom Digest".
The Custom Digest allows:
* selection of the jurisdiction of interest (so that headnotes from cases in that jurisdiction will appear in the results);
* limiting the time frame of the search; and
* adding additional search terms.
Selecting key numbers and jurisdictions in the "Key Number Search Tool" results in a similar display of digest headnotes.
Since all West headnote annotations are merged on Westlaw into a single database from which each Custom Digest is generated, there is no need to consult each separate series of the hard copy Decennial Digest. Full text of the cases may be accessed from the Custom Digest by clicking or activating the hyperlinks on the case citations. This will cause Westlaw to retrieve selected cases from a case law database, as long as the database is part of the user's regular subscription plan.
Other digest systems
Other digest systems exist, including Butterworth's Digest for the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
(also containing references to cases decided in other
Commonwealth
A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth ...
countries), the Canadian Abridgment,
digests associated with
official state reports, such as in
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
and
Wisconsin
Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...
, and digests associated with topical reporters, such as the
Uniform Commercial Code
The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), first published in 1952, is one of a number of uniform acts that have been established as law with the goal of harmonizing the laws of sales and other commercial transactions across the United States through U ...
Case Digest. Most of these use a topic and section format, while some, like the U.C.C. Case Digest, use a section format based on the statute or rules being annotated. The A.L.R. Digest, accompanying the ''
American Law Reports
In American law, the ''American Law Reports'' are a resource used by American lawyers to find a variety of sources relating to specific legal rules, doctrines, or principles. It has been published since 1919, originally by Lawyers Cooperative Pub ...
'', formerly had its own classification system, but was replaced in 2004 by ''West's American Law Reports Digest,'' which follows West's topic and key number system.
See also
*
Citator
In legal research, a citator is a citation index of legal resources, one of the best-known of which in the United States is Shepard's Citations. Given a reference of a legal decision, a citator allows the researcher to find newer documents which c ...
*
Legal research
Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a prob ...
External references
West Topic & Key Number System - Westlaw Quick Reference Guide.pdf)
West product search for Key Number Digest''West's Analysis of American Law'' product description''West's A.L.R. Digest'' product description
References
{{Reflist
West (publisher)
Legal research
Taxonomy