This tutorial describes how to take advantage of LexisNexis ® Headnotes in Shepard's ® Reports. It begins with the Shepard's report for McNeil v Economic Labarotory, Inc. (800 F.2d 111).

LexisNexis ® Headnotes are fully integrated into the Shepard's ® Citations Service, letting you quickly determine which citing cases discuss the issue that interests you.

When you Shepardize ® your case, you may find a long list of cases that cite to your decision. For example, 800 F.2d 111, McNeil v. Economics Laboratory, Inc., has more than 100 citing references. They can cite to your case for any number of reasons; but, you may be interested in only one or two issues discussed in your case. With LexisNexis Headnotes, you can identify when a citing case discusses an issue similar to one or more of the LexisNexis Headnotes of the case you Shepardized ®.

The Shepard’s Summary identifies the LexisNexis Headnotes of the case you Shepardized that have been matched to the language of any of the citing cases. It also indicates the number of times each LexisNexis Headnote is identified to a citing reference within this particular report.

The Summary also has a “Show full text of headnotes” link. Selecting this link opens a window with the full text of LexisNexis Headnotes of the case that have been referenced within your Shepard’s report. Displayed in the window is the full text of only those LexisNexis Headnotes that have been referenced within your Shepard’s report. To display the full text of all the LexisNexis Headnotes appearing in your case, select the "Show all" link. Just close the window when you are finished with it.

You can navigate through the Shepard’s report to the citing cases of interest using links in the Summary and the Navigation Tool. Suppose you’re interested in HN16. Select that link to jump to the first citing reference within the Shepard’s report that has been matched to HN16. You can use the Navigation Tool to jump to the next citing reference for HN16 within this report, by selecting the Next arrow in the Navigation Tool.

When you find a citing reference of interest, you can jump to that case by selecting the headnote link (for example, HN16) next to the case. The citing case is displayed, at the portion of the case that is likely to be of interest to you. You can return to your Shepard's report by clicking the Return to Shepard's link.

You may want to filter, or condense, the report to include only certain LexisNexis Headnotes. To do this, select the “FOCUS ™ - Restrict By” link. Among other things, you can use the FOCUS - Restrict By form to condense your Shepard’s report to include only the headnote(s) relevant to your research. Not sure which LexisNexis Headnote it was? As on the report Summary, there is a "Show full text of headnotes" link if you want to see the full text.

To restrict the report to include only references to a particular headnote (or headnotes), check the box next to each headnote you want included. When you have selected all the restrictions for your report, select the "Apply" button.

This concludes the tutorials for the Shepard’s Citations Service. Now you can:

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