OnLAW^® User's Guide

How to find your way around OnLAW
How to browse a title or library
Performing a search
Learn more about the different searches
Reviewing the results list
Reviewing a result document
Understanding the ranking of your search results
Linking to California cases and codes
Attorney-drafted forms
Other file formats in OnLAW
Printing
Customer Support

How to find your way around OnLAW

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How to browse a title or library

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Table of Contents

The Table of Contents is located in the window on the left side of the OnLAW application (Available Publications). When you first launch OnLAW, it will display the law areas containing the title(s) you have purchased.

What to do if you can’t see the Table of Contents

To browse your titles:

1. Go to the Table of Contents (Available Publications) located on the left side of the screen.
2. Click on the plus sign [+] to the left of a law area to see the available publications.
3. Click on the plus sign [+] to the left of a publication title to see chapter titles.
4. Click on the plus sign [+] to the left of a chapter title to see the section titles.

When you find a section you want to read, click on the title in the Table of Contents and the text will display in the Document window.

To collapse the Table of Contents:

• Click the minus sign [–] to collapse or close each layer of the contents.
• To collapse the entire Table of Contents, select Available Publications at the top of the Table of Contents and click on your browser’s refresh button.
  (Note: Refreshing the Table of Contents will also clear your search.)

To navigate a document in the Document window:

• Click "Previous l Next" to navigate forward and back through the text.
• Use the scroll bar to move up and down through the contents.
• To see a wider view of the contents, grab the sizing bar separating the frames and drag it to the right.

Performing a search

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Search Types

You have a choice of four different searches: Word l Case l Statute l Form

Learn more about the different searches

To perform a search:

1. Click on the Search tab and click on the type of search you want to perform.
2. Enter your search term(s).
3. Check the boxes in the Table of Contents to limit your search to specific sections, titles, or law areas.
4. Choose to display your search results sorted by rank or alphabetically by law area and publication title.
5. Click the Search button and a list of documents containing your search term(s) will appear in the Results window.

Learn more about the different searches

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Word Search

Word Search is OnLAW’s default search screen.
Limit your search to specific law areas and/or titles by checking boxes in the Table of Contents.

Search for “these words near each other” is based on the number of search terms, multiplied by 5.
Example: “marital charitable deduction” would return results where these terms are within 15 words of each other (3 words x 5 = 15).

Choose to display your search results sorted by rank or alphabetically by law area and publication title.
Find all word forms (e.g. run, running, ran) expands your results to include different forms of your search term(s).
Find synonyms expands your results to include synonyms for your search term(s).

Note: OnLAW search does not regard hyphenated terms as word forms (e.g., non-exempt is not a word form of nonexempt). To return results with both hyphenated and non-hyphenated forms of the word (e.g., enter both “non-exempt, nonexempt” as search terms).

Case Search

The Case Search finds all instances where a case is cited in the title(s) you own (Available Publications).

You can search by case name or citation.
When searching for a case by name, you must enter at least one complete word from the case name (e.g., Smith).
When searching for a case by citation, be sure to use the specific format.

Choose to display your search results sorted by rank or alphabetically by law area and publication title.
Limit your search to specific law areas and/or titles by checking boxes in the Table of Contents.

Statute Search

The Statute Search finds all instances where a code section is cited in the title(s) you own (Available Publications).

1. Select the code you want to search.
2. Enter a code section.
3. Click Search.

Choose to display your search results sorted by rank or alphabetically by law area and publication title.
Limit your search to specific law areas and/or titles by checking boxes in the Table of Contents.

Form Search

A Form Search looks for attorney-drafted forms and clauses, sample agency forms, and Judicial Council forms.
Choose to display your search results sorted by rank or alphabetically by law area and publication title.
Limit your search to specific law areas and/or titles by checking boxes in the Table of Contents.

Reviewing the results list

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Number of results / Search within these results

At the top of the results list, you will see how many results your search returned and a reference to the search terms used.

To refine your search results further, enter additional criteria in the "Search within these results" text box and click "Go"

Sort results by rank

If you choose to sort your search results by rank, your results will include:

• A percentage noting the relevancy of the result (Rank)
• Section number and title of the document containing the search term (Document)
• Title of the book where the document is located (Publication)

Learn more about the ranking of your search results

Document excerpts

You can control how much of the document excerpt is displayed by changing excerpts to None | Short | Medium | Long.

• None - no excerpts
• Short - display excerpts with 5 words for context
• Medium - display excerpts with 10 words for context
• Long - display excerpts with 25 words for context

Sort results by publication

If you choose to sort your search results by publication, your results will include:

• Section number and title of the document containing the search term (Document)
• Title of the book where the document is located sorted alphabetically first by law area and then by title (Publication)

Reviewing a result document

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When you select a document from the results list, the document displays in the Document window with the search term(s) highlighted.

• Click Previous | Next to navigate forward and back through the text.
• Click Previous Result | Next Result to navigate to the previous or next search result in your list.
• Click Clear Search to clear all search results, search terms, checkboxes and highlights in the document.
• Click the Results tab to return to the results list.

Note: Search sessions time out after 60 minutes of inactivity.

Understanding the ranking of your search results

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The OnLAW search engine uses relevancy to determine the ranking of documents displayed in the results list. Ranking covers a range of percentages from 100% to 0%. If the document rank is 100%, it is the most relevant. Word Search uses a combination of relevancy and Boolean commands (and, or, not, near) to determine the rank.

The four methods used for determining relevancy are:

Local frequency

This means that the more often a search term appears in a document, the more relevant that document is. For example, a document containing five instances of a search term is more relevant than a document containing only two instances of that search term.

Inverse document frequency

This means that terms that are rare within the context of the entire collection are given a higher relevancy ranking. For example, assume you are searching for two terms, "government" and "policy" within a collection containing 20,000 documents. If "government" is found only five times and "policy" is found 300 times, then documents containing "government" are given a higher weight when determining relevancy.

Document length comparison (density)

This means that shorter documents containing an equal number of search terms are more relevant than longer documents. Since the terms appear closer together in a shorter document, there is a higher chance that the document is relevant to your search.

Completeness

This means that documents containing more of the search terms are more relevant. For example, if your search contains four terms, a document which contains all four terms is more relevant than a document that only contains three.

If your search term is too broad, one document is not seen as more relevant than another and the ranking column will be blank for all results in the list. Narrow your search terms to return a ranked list.

Linking to California cases and codes

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Cases

CEB provides links to California Supreme Court and appellate court cases since 1934. Click on the link in the text and a new browser window will open to display the opinion. You can link further to any California case cited within the opinion by clicking on the citation.

Sample case:

Codes

Click on the code link in the text and a new browser window will open to display the code section. You can navigate back and forth through the code by clicking the Previous code section or Next code section links.

Sample code:

Attorney-drafted forms

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OnLAW titles include sample attorney-drafted forms, Judicial Council forms, and images such as graphs and diagrams to illustrate points discussed in the text.

Many of the attorney-drafted clauses and sample forms from the text are also available to download in Word or WordPerfect file formats so you can edit and save them on your computer. You can also select any text displayed in the Document window and copy and paste it into your word processor.

Note: Some forms (e.g., Judicial Council forms) are delivered as graphic images as opposed to text. These forms are intended to be viewed or printed and cannot be edited with a word processor.

To download an attorney-drafted form:

1. Right click on the download button that precedes the form text and select Save Target As.
2. Browse to the location on your computer where you want to save the file and click Save.

In some cases, consecutive form clauses make up a complete form. For convenience, the clauses have been combined into a single document and the download buttons are preceded by the following notice:

The form text in this section is part of a larger form. For your convenience, downloading any one of the sections included in the form will download the entire form. The inclusive section numbers are §§x.xx-x.xx.

Using Forms

Once you have downloaded the files to your hard drive, you are now ready to begin editing and creating documents using your word processor.

1. Launch your word processor (Word or WordPerfect).
2. Browse to the downloaded file and open.

Viewing Hidden Text

Each file contains a title that corresponds to the title of the section listed in the Table of Contents. These titles are in non-printing hidden text. For information on how to set your word processor to view hidden text or comment boxes, use your word processor’s Help and search for hidden text. This will provide you with specific instructions for turning this feature on or off for your version of Word or WordPerfect.

Completing Forms

After you have finished filling in the required information, go to the beginning of the file, then search for the underscore and bracket "_[" to be sure that you have filled in and deleted all the blanks. Then format the document, checking page breaks and spacing, and renumber paragraphs where necessary.

Other file formats in OnLAW

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Printing

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OnLAW’s printing feature allows you to print single or multiple documents as well as the current view in the Search and Results screens.

Printing documents

Click on Print located in the top right corner of the screen to bring up the print toolbar in the Document window.

Print this document

1. Select Print this document.
2. Click the Print button.

Print multiple documents

1. Select Print multiple documents.
2. Select the documents you want to print by checking boxes in the Table of Contents.
3. Click the Print button.

A print preview window containing the document(s) will open followed by your browser’s print dialog box. Click Print on the print dialog box to print the document(s).

Printing current view

Click on Print located in the top right corner of the screen to bring up the print dialog box to print the current view of the Search or Results screen.

1. Click the Print button to bring up your browser’s print dialog box.
2. Click Print on the print dialog box to print the search screen.

Note: On the Results screen, you can print only the current 20 results. To print the next 20 results, go to the next page of the results list.

Printing graphic images

Some forms (e.g., Judicial Council forms) are delivered as graphic images as opposed to text. These forms are intended to be viewed or printed and cannot be edited or filled.

1. Click the print button preceding the image. The image will display followed by the print dialog box.
2. Click Print on the print dialog box.
3. Click on the title of the form in the Table of Contents to return to the normal view.

Customer Support

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Customer Service

Call Customer Service if you have questions about your subscription, want to add additional titles or user licenses, or have general questions about CEB products and services.
Phone: 1-800-232-3444
Hours: Monday-Friday, 7:30am to 5:00pm PT
E-mail: customer_service@ceb.ucla.edu

Technical Support

Call Technical Support if you are having technical problems or need assistance using OnLAW.
Phone: 1-800-750-9155
Hours: Monday-Friday, 7:30am to 5:00pm PT
E-mail: tech_support@ceb.ucla.edu

Visit the OnLAW support pages for up-to-date information and answers to frequently asked questions.

System Requirements

Windows® 2000/XP/Vista
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 6 or higher browser (cookies and java enabled)
Internet connection

What to do if you can't see the Table of Contents (Available Publications)

To see the Table of Contents, you must download and install Java for your browser.

Download and install Sun Java now

Firewalls and Pop-up Blockers

OnLAW is a Web-based application and can therefore be affected by firewalls such as ZoneAlarm®, McAfee® Personal Firewall, and Norton™ Personal Firewall and pop-up blockers such as those found on the Google™ and Yahoo!® toolbars. Refer to your firewall or popup blocker Help for assistance or call CEB Technical Support at 1-800-750-9155.