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Quickly uncover implied overrulings with KeyCite Overruling Risk

Verifying valid law isn’t optional, but traditional citators rely only on a direct citation relationship between cases to identify overruled law. That has always meant the arduous task of manually validating all the citing references for every case cited in a brief or legal memorandum, and all the citing references for those cases, ad infinitum. It’s been the stuff nightmares are made of.

How KeyCite Overruling Risk is a cut above traditional citators

Included in Westlaw Edge, KeyCite Overruling Risk goes beyond traditional citation checking. It is the only citator capable of detecting when a point of law in a case has been implicitly undermined due to its reliance on a directly overruled, or otherwise invalid, prior decision.

KeyCite Overruling Risk leverages advanced AI, along with over 100 years of editorial enhancements and the text of the opinion itself to identify the points of law impacted by indirect negative treatment. It runs natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to follow the legal issue’s thread throughout the relevant line of cases to indicate when a point of law has been implicitly overruled.

Now you can jump right to the impacted paragraphs

It’s easier than ever to identify points of law that may have been implicitly undermined with the latest enhancement to KeyCite Overruling Risk on Westlaw Edge: impacted paragraph highlighting.

You will find KeyCite Overruling Risk warning icons in two places: at the top of the impacted case and within the Negative Treatment tab of that case. And now, term navigation makes it even easier to locate those points of law most at risk. With just a click, you can quickly identify and jump to the exact paragraph affected by indirect negative treatment

When accessing a document with the KeyCite Overruling Risk warning icon, you can jump directly to sections flagged as implicitly overruled. An orange bracket appears next to paragraphs with potentially compromised points of law. The warning icon appears next to the bracket so you can instantly identify the ultimate case generating the risk symbol. Being able to navigate to the most imperiled points of law saves precious time locating the language most likely to endanger your argument.

In an ever-changing legal landscape, the ability to save minutes, or hours, completing research allows you to concentrate on applying your creative problem-solving skills to the issues your clients care about most. 

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