Westlaw Watch

I keep forgetting to blog about Westlaw Watch, a slick little resource available to us on Westlaw. I discovered it by accident a couple of weeks ago when I asked Ryan Vandegrift, our Westlaw rep, about creating links or even searches into Westlaw that I could add to our website, to provide easy access to common searches.
Westlaw Watch is geared towards law firms with intranets, but it's useful to law schools too, and Barco's subscription includes access to it. Check it out - log into Westlaw Watch using your usual Westlaw login and go to the Create tab at the righthand top of the page. When you click on the top two links of the tab you can set up a current awareness clip that monitors all the news sources about a particular topic or monitor one particular database like the New York Times - you can even monitor the legal news in the NYT rather than the whole paper.
But the best link under Create lets you create a Westlaw Module. This allows you to set up a searchbox for whatever searches you use all the time (9th circuit cases, profile an attorney or judge, etc.). Westlaw Watch creates an attractive searchbox and gives you the code so that you can embed the searchbox into your website or blog.
The interface is sophisticated but very clean and easy to use. And I have to admit that I like the lighthouse in the page heading, and the fact that the whole website is done in Pitt colors!