Online
Today, LexisNexis users can Shepardize citations online; all cases displayed on LexisNexis bear a "Shepardize" link in their header and nearly always show an icon in the upper left corner of the Web page indicating the status of the case as citable authority. The icon itself, when clicked, brings up a full Shepard's report for the case.
The report indicates exactly how later cases cited the case being Shepardized with plain English phrases like "followed by" or "overruled" rather than by using the old abbreviations. Additionally, the report shows the full case title (that is, the names of the plaintiff and defendant) and full citation for each of the later cases. This is important because lawyers can usually distinguish criminal from civil cases by looking at the title. Criminal cases (with the exception of habeas corpus cases) are always titled "People v. " or "State v. ." Often, a criminal case may cite a civil case for a point of law which a civil litigator does not care about, and vice versa.
Finally, the online report has the convenience of allowing the user to simply click on the hyperlink for any listed case to retrieve it instantly (if it is within the user's access plan), whereas users of Shepard's print version had to dash through long law library aisles to retrieve heavy legal reporter volumes, one for each case (and then someone had to put all those volumes back).
Read more about this topic: Shepard's Citations