Join us for a virtual Continuing Legal Education (CLE) program facilitated by Westlaw. To receive one ethics credit from the program, attendees must be present for the entire class.

This class is tailored towards attorneys looking to gain Continuing Legal Education credit, but all DOC staff are welcome to attend.

This advanced course is designed for experienced Westlaw Precision users who already know how to locate and read regulations and basic administrative materials. You will refine expert-level research workflows for federal regulatory and administrative law by building defensible search strategies, validating regulatory authority, and documenting research steps for reuse and auditability. Topics include precision searching across the CFR and Federal Register (including targeted use of fields, proximity, and segmentation), deep KeyCite analysis for regulations and agency materials, regulatory history and version comparison to explain the “why” behind amendments, and advanced techniques for locating and leveraging preambles and agency reasoning. In the administrative materials portion, you will learn to construct repeatable searches across specific agency and decision databases, filter for authoritative and on-point items, and connect guidance/decisions to supporting cases, secondary sources, and Practical Law resources to strengthen arguments and client-ready work product.

Recommended prerequisites: Comfort navigating the CFR on Westlaw Precision; basic Terms & Connectors searching; familiarity with KeyCite concepts.

By the end of class, participants will be able to:

• Design and iterate a research plan that combines citation-based retrieval, fielded searching, and topic segmentation for complex regulatory questions.
• Evaluate regulatory validity and impact using KeyCite, history/versions, and citing references, and explain the practical significance of changes over time.
• Locate, interpret, and leverage Federal Register materials (including preambles) to support intent, rationale, effective dates, and compliance narratives.
• Build authoritative administrative materials sets by agency/topic, distinguish guidance/decisions by weight, and connect them to primary/secondary support.

LexisNexis seeks credit based on the content, but the type of credit allowed is determined by the state governing MCLE Board. Please note that approval of a course is at the discretion of each state bar.