APPLES TO APPLES:
TheLaw.net Outperforms Westlaw™ and
WestlawNext™ In 'Relevance' and 'Most Cited'
by Mark Whitney,
Home | About | Case Law | Software |  FAQS | References

QUERY: 3582 and "supervised release" 

March 1, 2010: Our search of published F.2d and F.3d opinions is 'Anchored' by the section number of the applicable statute and 'Filtered' by the relevant phrase 'supervised release' located deep in the plain text of the statute. By fashioning a simple query that speaks in the plain language of  the law, we completely eliminate the need for so-called 'Word Guessing' forcing each of the three search engines to return the most comprehensive and relevant results possible.

'RELEVANCE'

Note #1: Westlaw and WestlawNext both rank 'Fontenot' No. 1. The case is 849 words. West Attorney Editors assign two headnotes to the case. The case does not appear in West's Annotations of 18 U.S.C. sec. 3582.

Note #2: TheLaw.net ranks 'Tsosie' No. 1. The case is 6,719 words. West Attorney Editors assign 12 headnotes to the case. The case includes a dissent. The case appears in Section 3582 Annotated.

Note #3: 50% of the 12 listed opinions ranked in the aggregated Top 10 of the three search engines are not included by West Attorney Editors in Section 3582 Annotated.

Note #4: A blank 'Results Ranking' field indicates that the case was not ranked in that search engine's Top 10.

Note # 5: Eight of the 12 listed opinions appear in the Top 10 Ranking of all three case law search engines. TheLaw.net and Westlaw/WestlawNext each find and rank one case in their respective Top 10 that the other does not. See 'Lafayette' and 'Lawrence'. Westlaw and TheLaw.net each find and rank one case in their Top 10 that the other does not. See 'Lawrence' and 'Woods'.
  RESULTS RANKING
TLN WL WLN Annotated
In re: Sealed Case, 573 F.3d 844 (D.C. Cir. 2009) 10   10 YES
United States v. Anderson, 15 F.3d 278 (2nd Cir. 1994) 4 4 3 NO
United States v. Etherton, 101 F.3d 80 (9th Cir. 1996) 2 3 6 YES
United States v. Fontenot, 583 F.3d 743 (10th Cir. 2009) 8 1 1 NO
United States v. Forman, 553 F.3d 585 (7th Cir. 2009) 9 10 4 YES
United States v. Giddings, 37 F.3d 1091 (5th Cir. 1994) 7 9 7 NO
United States v. Lafayette, 585 F.3d 435 (D.C. Cir. 2009)   5 9 YES
United States v. Lawrence, 535 F.3d 631 (7th Cir. 2008) 6 NO
United States v. Manzella, 475 F.3d 152 (3rd Cir. 2007) 5 8 8 YES
United States v. Morales, 590 F.3d 1049 (9th Cir. 2010) 3 2 5 NO
United States v. Tsosie, 376 F.3d 1210 (10th Cir. 2004) 1 6 2 YES
United States v. Woods, 581 F.3d 531 (7th Cir. 2009) 7 NO
 
'MOST CITED'

Note #1: By default Westlaw ranks results 'Newest' to 'Oldest.' TheLaw.net, which by default, ranks results based on 'Relevance' has been critical of Westlaw's default ranking. Like TheLaw.net and in contrast to Westlaw, WestlawNext ranks results by 'Relevance.'

Note #2: On May 1, 2008, TheLaw.net released a free upgrade allowing users to sort results by 'Most Cited' in the database. Thomson Reuter's now includes a similar feature in the paid upgrade from Westlaw to WestlawNext.

Note #3: Upon selecting 'Most Cited' WestlawNext re-sorts our results by citation frequency. However, something is wrong. WestlawNext re-sorts our results with only 10% accuracy. The rank WestlawNext assigns to each citation is included to the left of each citation. The correct rank appears in the 'Corrected Column' together with a citation count. The correct rankings were obtained by turning each citation into a Boolean phrase - which is a fancy way of saying we put the book and page citation in quotation marks, selected Westlaw's ALLCASES Database, clicked Search, noting the hit count each citation receives.

Note #4: Unlike WestlawNext, TheLaw.net sorts 'Most Cited' with 100% accuracy. Also unlike WestlawNext, TheLaw.net allows you to view Most Cited and Most Relevant on the same screen, which makes it simple to select the opinions from your result set that cite your case most often for your point of law.

Note #5: This study also demonstrates what TheLaw.net Corporation has been saying for years: If you rely on West Statutes Annotated as your ''go to' tool for finding the most relevant cases construing the statute that is driving your search, you are missing massive amounts of relevant law.
       
WESTLAWEXT 'MOST CITED; RANKED 1 thru 10 Annotated Corrected
1. United States v. Scroggins, 880 F.2d 1204 (11th Cir. 1989) NO 7/138
2. United States v. Davis. 53 F.3d 638 (4th Cir. 1995) NO 2/324
3. United States v. Posada-Rios, 158 F.3d 832 (5th Cir. 1998) NO  4/201
4. United States v. Vautier, 144 F.3d 756 (11th Cir. 1998) YES 5/194
5. United States v. Moreno, 421 F.3d 1217 (11th Cir. 2005) NO 1/338
6. United States v. Anderson, 15 F.3d 278 (2nd Cir. 1994) NO 9/99
7. United States v. Early, 27 F.3d 140 (5th Cir. 1994) YES 3/204
8. United States v. Giddings, 37 F.3d 1091 (5th Cir. 1994) NO 10/51
9. United States v. Legree, 205 F.3d 724 (4th Cir. 2000) NO 6/186
10. United States v. Townsend, 98 F.3d 510 (9th Cir. 1996) YES 8/132
       
    THELAW.NET EQUALIZER 7 'MOST CITED' RANKED 1 thru 10 Annotated Rank Actual
United States v. Sanders, 247 F.3d 139 (4th Cir. 2001)  NO 1 1
United States v. Scroggins, 880 F.2d 1204 (11th Cir. 1989) NO 2 2
United States v. Moreno, 421 F.3d 1217 (11th Cir. 2005) NO 3 3
United States v. Ivy, 83 F.3d 1266 (10th Cir. 1996) NO 4 4
United States v. Fagan, 996 F.2d 1009 (9th Cir. 1993) NO 5 5
United States v. Perez, 129 F.3d 255 (2nd Cir. 1997) NO 6 6
United States v. Vautier, 144 F.3d 756 (11th Cir. 1998) YES 7 7
United States v. Posada-Rios, 158 F.3d 832 (5th Cir. 1998) NO 8 8
United States Lara-Velasquez, 919 F.2d 946 (5th Cir. 1990)  NO 9 9
United States Brown, 332 F.3d 1341 (11th Cir. 2003) YES 10 10

"Sounds like they [WestLawNext] are imitating a competing product, about 11 years old now, called TheLaw.Net.
It costs $575 per year, flat, for one lawyer and one assistant over all jurisdictions.
I used it in its early years and looked at it again recently.
It was good enough that I just cancelled my Westlaw subscription."
~Posted by: somslawyer: February 2nd, 2010 at 2:27 pm www.NMissCommentator.com

© 2010 TheLaw. net Corporation. All rights reserved. Westlaw and WestlawNext are registered trademarks of Thomson Reuters.