Westlaw is a website which provides online legal research facilities for lawyers, solicitors and other law-related professionals in the United States of America. It also provides data-base to its members. There is a huge multitude of legal information available at Westlaw website. It includes case law journals, federal as well as state statutes, public archives, and law-related information.

Westlaw uses a west key number system. Westlaw has many facilitating links such as KeyCite which is a link provided to the members to reckon whether a case law is still valid in this point of time or not. The website is user-friendly and brings those links on the top that are used by the user more frequently. The web site senses the specific need of the customer and adapts its feature according to his requirement e.g. there are tabs that organize the contents of Westlaw according to the particular domain of the lawyer especially for those who seek information on certain specialized areas.

Westlaw was the initiative of West Publishing but it was purchased by Thomson Corporation in 1996. The Westlaw operates in many countries providing legal information of that very country. But there is an international Westlaw as well. Any lawyer who is interested in international law can access that website. For example, Westlaw Canada, KeyCite Canada and Westlaw UK etc. Now Westlaw China has been introduced which provides information regarding case laws, legal journals related to Chinese law. Westlaw operates in sixty eight countries.

Westlaw